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Graham Clark
Music Features Writer
@Maxximum23Clark
11:45 AM 19th August 2015
arts

Love Me Tender - Grand Opera House, York

 
If you are an Elvis Presley fan and expecting to witness a musical about the great man you need to be warned that this is a musical that features only his songs and the production has nothing to do with the mans life.

The storyline reminds me lightly of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and also A Midsummer Nights Dream where everyone seems to be falling in love all at the same time. Like the Shakespeare play this is a comedy too with quick one liners and some over the top characters.

The musical opens with a number of actors behind bars, you can guess what the first song is going to be performed. As Jailhouse Rock reverberates around the theatre the show is on its way. Several people commented after the show that the orchestra was too loud and you could not hear the actors singing properly but it did not detract from the enjoyment for myself.

In a small town in 1950s America a guitar playing, hip swivelling stranger named Chad ( played with suave smoothness by Ben Lewis) rides into town on his motorbike.

Mica Paris best known for her hit My One Temptation plays the hard talking other Sylvia. She still has a fine voice which is best heard on There's Always Me.

Fans of Eastenders will recognise Barry Evans ( Shaun Williamson) who plays the love sick dad, Jim. He falls in love with museum worker Miss Sandra (Kate Tydman) but Miss Sandra also falls in love with Jims daughter Natalie (Laura Tebbutt) who dresses up as a man called Ed so that she can impress Chad and get closer to him, except that Chad also starts to have feelings for Ed!

Meanwhile Sylvia's daughter Lorraine (Aretha Ayeh) falls in love with the son, Dean of the local Mayor. There are connotations of black oppression in 1950's America as Sylvia is a different colour to Dean Hyde ( Felix Mosse). Watch out too for nerdy sidekick Dennis (Mark Anderson) who has some very laughable lines.

There are 25 Elvis songs heard during the evening and Ben Lewis does a good job of singing the songs, albeit with some of the arrangements of the songs altered to fit in with the show. He also reminded me too of the Fonz from Happy Days.

You may never hear Blue Suede Shoes and Love Me Tender in the same light again after witnessing this rib tickling show but it was much better than I expected and it was an unexpected surprise.

Runs until Saturday 22 August 2015

Tickets from www.atgtickets.com/York