★★★★★ 0/5

Wow! Grease: Live sets the bar high for TV musicals.

Make no mistake. They will be talking about this one for a long time.

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2016-02-02_2343

If you missed Grease: Live last night airing on Nine you missed a new benchmark in Live TV musicals.

Since 2013’s Live to Air production of The Sound of Music, US TV has been rediscovering its love for music theatre, since producing Peter Pan and The Wiz. Rocky Horror is also on the way (but not as a Live production) and The Passion at Easter.

Grease: Live went to air in the US yesterday pulling 12.2m viewers and rave reviews.

The nearly three hour production excelled in TV direction -his name is Thomas Kail-, choreography and design. From the opening number with Jessie J. to the rapturous closing with “We Go Together” this was a production dripping in Emmys.

Carefully paying homage to both the feature film and the original stage musical, it featured a brilliant cast including Julianne Hough, Aaron Tveit, Carly Rae Jepsen, Vanessa Hudgens, KeKe Palmer, Ana Gasteyer and Wendell Pierce.

There were cameos by Mario Lopez, Boyz II Men, Eve Plumb, Joe Jonas and movie originals Barry Pearl and Didi Conn.

Ex-Neighbours star Sam Clark led the rival gang, the Scorpions and more than held his own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxWJVSOyPlk

The way the production segued from set piece to set piece, including fantasy moments within each, was utterly seamless. Other innovations included a Live audience sitting on gymnasium bleachers and doubling for school assembly scenes. The finale included a peek at how the show pulled it all off, including driving past crew on golf carts to the last sound stage.

Of course no Live production would be complete without its own challenges. Rain threatened the outdoor scenes in LA. Vanessa Hudgens sadly lost her father to cancer just days before, and during the US broadcast on the East Coast, there was a loss of audio.

There was also some mild editing for television from the original work: dropping the odd four-letter word (notably at the end of Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee!), and I’m sure the original script has a reference to tampons. A condom and hookers reference did manage to stay….

No surprises the show was trending #1 in Australia across the night (we could have done without them flashed onto the screen… it was like tweeting during a movie).

The production was so good Nine should find time to run it again.

32 Responses

  1. i didn’t like it, guess i am just too fond of the movie, it was the cast i mainly thought were a bit miscast, the production values however were fantastic…

    1. Little Shop would be really good, so long as they can get Audrey 2 right. Plus they could cast a well known girl group in the roles of Crystal, Chiffon and Ronette.

  3. I love,love,loved it the production value was amazing,Grease Lighting an example of the seamless transition of costumes etc. I saw the Sound of Music live one and thought the sets on that was great but this took it to the next level, would love to see The Wiz. I am a fan of Stockard Channing since Grease and beyond but I thought Vanessa Hudgens was fabulous and even more so with losing her father the day before.

    It was great seeing Didi Conn, I didn’t realise Eve Plumb was Mrs Murdock and also Barry Pearl as the TV producer until he turned around at the end and showed his T-Bird jacket.

    I am sure the ratings in this instance are not a true reflection of the number who watched as twitter was going mad last night. I don’t know if Nine did enough promotion ? but like others have commented they should re-show it, perhaps with a few less ads to keep it to 3 hours.

    1. I forgot to mention when Boys II Men where on I thought how great would it have been if it was Human Nature ( I know it would never have happened but) it would have suited their voices so well.

  5. I really enjoyed this wonderful production last night!
    Young people probably watching a live theatre production for the first time & realising what a wonderful experience it is seeing live theatre.
    My twitter feed was going crazy last night, so many of my followers watching – it was fantastic.
    It’s disappointing that the ratings didn’t reflect the amazing production – this deserved to be well over a million viewers.
    Channel 9 should re-screen the show at 6.30pm this Saturday night so the whole family can sit down & enjoy the show together!
    A local version would be amazing – Priscilla would be fabulous – though for it to work, they need to spend the cash to match the overseas productions – the bar is set very high!

  7. With NBC announcing in January that their next live musical will be Hairspray, I feel will need to match and hopefully raise the bar set by Grease Live. But I’m curious, if an Australian network were to put on their own live musical, what would you want to see?

  8. Yep was very well done.

    Pity Rocky Horror won’t be live to TV as it would be good to see that way. The filmed UK theatrical version to celebrate the 40th year of Rocky Horror that aired on SBS last year in October was quite good (thanks to audience involvement), however live to TV would be good as a difference to that one, especially if done as elaborately as Grease.

  10. I only was able to watch 2/3’s of it but it was amazing how much work went into this and the scale of it all. Vanessa Hudgens and Elle McLemore were the standouts.

  11. there was not much pre-promotion of this show and it was excellent. Channel 9 slotted a lot of advertising to stretch it out to 1120PM. Only 400,000 viewers is disappointing. Putting tweets in made it entertaining. Good on 9 for showing so soon after airing in the USA.

      1. I take back my complaint about advertising, it was 3 hours in the USA which meant they had at least another 12 minutes of advertising, thank you channel 9!

  13. Nine did well to get this to run… end of story. The show was fantastic and would have been a logistical nightmare. A massive congrats on the producers for pulling it off. The live tweets on screen were not necessary. I think everyone from actors through to camera and production people would love to be doing more of this… it sad it still lost to the MKR reality clap trap. Thats the future of FTA… event TV… Live sport and news… it has been said so many times here before but reality tv is a yawn factor.

  15. Agreed – it was sensational. Events like this will keep free-to-air TV relevant. I wasn’t looking forward to the Rocky Horror Live (because how can you better the original?) but after Grease Live, the possibilities are endless. And what’s wrong with letting every generation have its own version? More please

  17. David I’m sure I don’t have to ask, but is it possible for you to let us know if and when Nine plan on running it again if they decide to so? I now feel like I missed out on something pretty special…

  18. You think given the amazing success of this production, and that over 12.2M Americans watched it, they will make this an annual event or is a one time “We did it, it worked and let’s not go down the NBC path” event?

    Remember that Rocky Horror won’t be live, what other productions could they take on?

        1. Fox are doing The Passion as a live musical set in modern New Orleans for Palm Sunday, 20th March. That being said different producers to Grease. I would be interested to see, but don’t think it will air here. broadwayworld.com/bwwtv/videoplay.cfm?colid=1235241

          2. David. My bad, serves me right for not re-reading the article before posting.

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