“Fame The Musical” by Long Eaton Operatic Society
May Hall Trent College, Long Eaton

Think “Fame” and images of leg warmers and New York yellow taxis come into play, and of course that iconic song, which topped the singles chart back in 1980. LEOS take us back to that period with some memorable characters. Characters like Carmen, Schlomo, Tyrone, Iris, Nick and Serena who attend the New York City's celebrated High School for the Performing Arts.

Emily May Corner (Carmen Diaz) is sassy and Carmen is hungry for fame, but at what price? I have many favourites from the soundtrack and, apart from the title track, Emily belts out one of my faves in "In L.A." I thought she was going to take the roof off with that last note!

Ellie Simmonds (Grace Lamb) is always a welcome edition to any piece of theatre and as "Lambchop" she is also full of sass as the lady drummer in the music class.

Rob Chilton (Schlomo Metzenbaum) also gets to sing another of my favourite songs from the show, "Bring On Tomorrow" which by the end of the musical turns into one big old gospel style number

Natalie Brown (Serena Katz) and Harvey Latter (Nick Piazza) perform another face in "Let's Play A Love Scene". This "will they/won't they" scenario is quite cute, even though we know they will, and their pairing is well cast.

Lydia Thacker (Iris) brings an air of class as the ballet dancer with a hidden agenda, but has some lovely lines in her ballet.

Jake Truman (Tyrone Jackson), now here is a character that Is flawed from the start, but what i love about this character is that he knows where his strengths, as well as his weaknesses are, and does something about them.I love the energy in "Dancing On The Sidewalk" and the fire in "Tyrone's Rap".

Now I don't know if this was part of the rough Bronx character but I noticed Jake helping all the ladies down the stairs, so if not a Tyrone trait, the gentlemanly trait is certainly with Jake.

Jack Woolley (Joe Vegas) is well cast as the comedy character. Brash, naughty but very funny.

Amy Parker (Mabel Washington) gets to belt out a wonderfully strong version of "Mabel's Prayer".

Thomas Phipps (Goody King), the trumpet player in the music study threesome

Alex Tavener (Miss Sherman), gets top pitch the character just right as the English teacher who is seen as being on Tyrone's case all the time but she is his saviour when it comes to his education.My favourite song from this musical has always been "These Are My Children" and as soon as Alex started singing, the hairs went up on my arms. An emotive song which suits Alex down to the ground.

Emma Collins (Ms Bell)m the dance teacher gets to battle it out with Miss Sherman and their duet is one of the many musical highlights in this performance.

One of the busiest men in local theatre is Adam Guest who plays Mr Sheinkopf, the music teacher. Not the biggest of parts but one that, for me, stuck out, not least for that wonderful talent he has for accents, and his German accent was done really well. Adam seems to morph into any character he does, and he looked so much like Mr Shorofski from the TV show "Kids from Fame", also the music teacher in that show,

Also appearing in this production are Molly Parkinson (Sonia), Simon Parker(Mr Myers - the drama teacher), Louise Seel (Mrs Peterson), Katie MacDonald (Jessica), Erin Hill (Tiffany) and Jenny Ashworth (Nicole),

Directed by Adam Daniels, he kept the show pacy with plenty of energy.

Choreographed by Rachel Murray, and a great job she did as there were several dance styles in this musical; from ballet to street.

Musical Director for the show is Tom Watkins and along with his band of musicians they created a sound that was close to the authentic 70's soul sound of the likes of The Salsoul Orchestra from that era, and I felt that i was back there. Smooth, jazzy and I loved the sound of the harpsichord used in some of the tracks.

The sound in Act One was a bit messy but by Act Two it had been sorted and there was a big improvement. At times it seems like the singers were battling against the volume of the band in the first part. there had always been issues with the sound at May hall, bit last year was the best sound I'd heard at May Hall. But as I mentioned by Act Two the balance was just right.

What i also missed though were some of the New York and/or U.S generic accents in some of the performances; There seemed to be a predominance of English accents in the New York School of Performing Arts.

That said, nothing could detract from my love for this musical. It's one of my guilty musical theatre pleasures because of the memorable soundtrack and the warm characters.

I love the messages the musical gave out, and I love the irony of the original film, which made stars of many of the actors, because the message that Schlomo gives Carmen is not to be in such a hurry to find fame.

Yet another solid and entertaining production from Long Eaton Operatic Society

“Fame The Musical” is lighting up the Long Eaton sky like a flame until Saturday 13 April.