Something to Shout! about

4:11pm Tuesday 19th February 2008

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Reader Geoff Billingsley reviews Shout! at The Churchill, Bromley

THE 1960s is probably the most written about and revisited decade there is and while there is no Life On Mars style time travel involved, Shout! at Bromley's Churchill Theatre took us back to the decade which changed the world.

Of course, any show about the sixties has to include music and somehow we were treated to more than 30 hits - and refreshingly, not all obvious picks.

Unsurprisingly there were lots of Pet Clark and Dusty numbers but also a spine-tingling version of To Sir, With Love, sung by Donna Steele as Georgina, These Boots Are Made for Walking and Those Were the Days. And they were, weren't they?

The two big stars of Shout! are Claire Sweeney (stunning) as Ruby and Su Pollard as Yvonne. Just thinking of Su makes you laugh but when she sang You're My World, the old Cilla hit, well, let's just say, I don't know where it came from. Up until then, Claire had won the singing stakes with her rendition of Alfie but emotion took over when our Su did her thing. The quite insignificant storyline was well outweighed by this massive music content; some of these were real spine tinglers.

When Shona White as Betty joined the afore-mentioned trio for Yesterday When I Was Young I was just gob smacked. Standing ovations of a full house must be like honey to the bees to this wonderful collection of artists - not forgetting Howard Jones as The Man who reminded us of those wonderful, but sexist, ad's of the time. We even had the Milk Tray guy and an Austin Powers lookalike in the bar..!

This show brought back so many long filed away memories which I briefly shared with a mother and daughter sitting outside stage door waiting for Miss Sweeney - or was it Su? I left both signing the autograph books of their admirers of which I am now one and suddenly wondered if that ball really did cross the line. They might THINK it's all over but with shows like this it never really is, is it?