"10" by LEOS Youth Group

Duchess Theatre, Long Eaton.

This show is like having an injection of energy, a vaccination of vivacity. The energy from these young people on stage would be enough to supply the National Grid for the evening. I actually felt invigorated when the show ended as if my batteries had been put on charge.

Celebrating 10 years of LEOS Youth Group 27 very talented people took to the stage to present a blistering look back at some of the shows and musicals they had put on, many of them award winning productions, and taking us into next year with tasters of what was to come with "Grease" and "Madagascar" to round the evening off.

Split into two teams, for social distancing purposes, "Broadway" team and "West End" team took us through high energy performances like the opener "We're All In This Together" from "High School Musical" and "You Can't Stop The Beat" from "Hairspray" through to ballads like "Memory" from "Cats", "Tomorrow" from "Annie" and the title song from "Beauty & The Beast".

I loved the light hearted show tunes such as "Good Morning" from "Singing In The Rain", "Fat Sam's Grand Slam" from "Bugsy Malone" and the big highlight for me "Agony" from "Into The Woods"

The choreography was created by many of the Youth Group themselves, and I can see there being some budding choreographers within this group.

I must also mention the costumes as well. They were brilliant, and I also marvelled at the very quick costume changes. The stage managers and dressers must have really had their work cut out for them, as well as the performers of course.

Local theatre is notoriously more of a female thing than a male past time, the times that I have heard of societies and Youth Groups crying out for male members, but it was great to see that the lads were out in front with this production, and really giving the ladies a run for their money in both singing and dancing stakes. Don't get me wrong the female contingent held their own and sang and danced their socks off, but it was great to see such confidence and talent from the young men in the group.

Matt McAuley and Jude Yellop gave us "Agony", which was my guilty pleasure of the night, Max Fuller performed, not just sang, "Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat" from "Guys n Dolls", Grace Collishaw, Matt McAuley and Billy Sweet in "Good Morning" was excellent, Darcy Boyd and Roisin Parker really put a smile on my face with "Zip A Dee Doo Dah", Ella Charlesworth gave me goosebumps with "Tomorrow", as did Lilly Simons-Clark with her rendition of "Memory" - the correct musical version, not the Elaine Paige single version - from "Cats", Kate Whitaker's version of "Friend Like Me" from "Aladdin" was great fun to watch as well. So many highlights in such a short period of time.

Closing down the show was "I Like To Move It" from "Madagascar" and from the looks, and the smiles, on LEOS Youth Group's faces as they took their bows, they could not have picked a more perfect song to close on, because they certainly all did like to move it, whatever "it" may be.

There are so many people who worked incessantly hard to get this show on stage that I could not name them all but you all know who you are and you should know what a massive success the show is, has been and will still be as there is Saturday's performance to come.

The Sound and Light Dream Team of the two Daves, Dave Dallard and Dave Martin added to the visual splendour of the evening. Already an explosion of colour and glitter with the costumes the lighting highlighted every sequin and satin and the sound was just right to make for an enjoyable aural experience. As the Kinks once said "Thank you for the Daves", or something like that...

Every single person on that stage tonight should feel incredibly proud of their performances. The energy, the wonderful choreography, including a brilliant tap dance number, the confident vocals, all take time and practice, and I can only imagine that as we are still under the Covid cloud and social distancing, this was not the easiest experience for all involved, but the result was a fast moving and very slick production. And I haven't even mentioned that in between the singing and dancing, various members also acted as MC's to let us know what was coming up. Is there nothing this bunch can't do?

Parents and family members will be extremely proud, the performers should be very proud, and I felt proud to have experienced this group's work, past and present, and hopefully future as well.

"10" is at the Duchess Theatre, Long Eaton until Saturday 3 July, but you'll be lucky to get tickets I warrant you!!