Sunderland Empire – until 9 October 2021
5*****
The special gala performance of School of Rock, to celebrate the official reopening of Sunderland Empire after a long 18 months, finished early due to an alarm in the building and a mass evacuation of the building. I can only assume it was the heat from the red-hot talent of the kids on stage that caused the alarms to go off, because those children were on fire!
It’s hard to equate the people who wrote The Phantom of the Opera and Downton Abbey could collaborate to write a rock musical, but the Lords have done an excellent job. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music and Julian Fellows book, come together with Glenn Slater’s fabulous lyrics and Laurence Connors assured direction to give us a rather fantastic production.
Based on the Jack Black film of the same name, Dewey Finn (Jake Sharp) is a rock star in his head and a waster in real life. No job, living in the spare room of his friend Ned (Matthew Rowland) and hated by Ned’s girlfriend Patty (Nadia Violet Johnson) and thrown out of his own band. But all of this changes when Dewey takes a phone call intended for Ned, inviting him to teach at the prestigious Horace Green Prep School. Dewey Finn is suddenly substitute teacher Mr Schneebly and the chaos ensues.
After witnessing his class being taught to play Mozart by Principal Rosalie Mullins (Rebecca Lock), Dewey realises he has a band and sets about changing them from classical musicians to rock stars so they can compete in Battle of the Bands.
With three sets of youngsters playing the individual roles, it’s fair to say the future of musical theatre is assured with the insane talent of these amazing child performers. Each of them has more talent in their little finger than I will have in a lifetime. And it was nice to see the grown up band (Micheal Riley, Sam Hill, Eddie Tatton, Ben Castle, Adam Smith, Dan Humphreys, Gordon Wilson and Stephen Hill) cheering on the kids from the pit, during the Battle of the Bands.
It was a shame we never got to see the end of the show and didn’t get the chance to giving a very deserving standing ovation to this class of outstanding performers but I’m sure we would raised the roof of the Empire cheering on these ultra talented teenyboppers