Sing along to Grease hits

Show producer Louise Donaldson is promising a great night out, reliving the classic hits from the cult film which will be screened with full licence for you to sing along.

“Everybody loves Grease. It’s a love story with such upbeat songs. As a teenager you just always wanted to be Danny or Sandy.”

The idea of sing-a-long goes back apparently to an old people’s home in 1999, Louise says: “Apparently they got them singing along to Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. And then someone picked up the idea for a Sing-A-Long-A Sound Of Music, and they did it at the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in London and New York. It was a great hit.

“We took up from there. We have been doing Sing-A-Long-A Sound Of Music for 12 years. Grease was always a natural one to do as well. We have been trying to get the rights for it ever since 2000. We have been doing it now since December 2010.

“It’s a bit more interactive than The Sound Of Music. There is more dancing. The host comes on and people get warmed up with some singing and then some dance moves and then the audience gets shown how to use the items in their goodie bags and then we do the fancy dress competition. And then we play the movie with the lyrics on.”

Worthing is one of more than 80 stops on a 2012 tour which will mark the 40th anniversary of the original stage version of Grease.

Adding to the fun is the chance to become a T-Bird or Pink Lady for the night.

As Louise says, it’s predominantly a female audience - in fact around 95 per cent women compared to the 75 per cent that The Sound Of Music generally attracts.

“But we are very happy that it is a female audience. That’s absolutely fine. It’s great to have an event for a group of women to go along to and just let their hair down.”

Valentines Day marks the 40th anniversary of the stage musical Grease which premiered at the Off-Broadway Eden Theatre in downtown Manhattan, before transferring to Broadway in June, 1972.

The 1972 show, about two lovers in a 1950s US high school, was based on an earlier, grittier “play with incidental music” called Grease Lightning, first staged in Chicago the previous year.

In 1978 it spawned into the movie starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.