Theatre: Rip It Up - The 60's

Theatre: Garrick Theatre, London
Producers: Steven Howard, David Shepherd, Neil O'Brien
Run Time: 2hrs and 20mins
Running Till: 2nd June 2019
My Rating: 4/5

Talking 'bout my generation....



Last Wednesday my Mum and I went to London for a late Mother's Day gift of a theatre trip. As you can tell by the name of this blog post we went to see Rip It Up: The 60's. Performing at the Garrick Theatre near Leicester Square this is a really fun show playing at the moment. Rip It Up is a celebration of the sounds of the sixties, with the cast singing and dancing their way through various musical movements, and talking about the events which changed the decade.


Rip It Up previously had a touring show round the UK featuring songs from the 50's; the show starred Jay McGuiness (The Wanted) and Louis Smith (Olympic Gymnast) and toured the UK in 2017. In 2018 a touring show of the 60's starred Louis Smith, Harry Judd (McFly) and Aston Merrygold (JLS) before making it's debut in the West End and re-introducing McGuiness.

The four main stars of the show were all famous for starring on BBC's Strictly Come Dancing, with McGuiness, Smith and Judd winning their seasons and Merrygold winning the Christmas TV Special for hitting a perfect 40 for his performance. Unfortunately Louis Smith was not able to perform in the show I saw due to illness but the other three really showed their dancing abilities and their characters shined throughout the show. Jay McGuiness showed his silly, goofy side and his vocal abilities; Aston Merrygold got the crowd clapping and dancing along whilst showing off his amazing voice too; likewise Harry Judd, most famous for playing drums in McFly would display this passion between dance breaks. They were all phenomenal.

The show is told through a 60's music style show, think of Hairspray and Corny Collins. The Presenter (Cavin Cornwall) had this fantastic smooth American voice reminding me of the "Oh Yeah" voice in Yello's song, but Cornwall gave a brilliant charismatic performance throughout.
 The vocals and band were also incredible throughout the show. Jill Marie Cooper was singing her way through the sixties as the main vocalist and her voice was out of this world. When she sung the closing song of Shout she sounded just like Lulu.

Throughout the night the show's cast sung and performed songs such as: '(Can't Get No) Satisfaction' - Rolling Stones, 'She Loves You' - The Beatles, 'Sugar, Sugar' - The Archies, 'Good Vibrations' - The Beach Boys, 'Do You Love Me' - The Contours, 'My Generation' - The Who, among many other famous and favourite hits of the decade. These songs were broken down into musical styles including Motown, Boy Bands, Psychedelic, Woodstock and so on.

Between acts there were also video tape segments of famous stars from the sixties. Lulu was heavily featured throughout the videos, followed by Dionne Warwick, Roger Daltrey, Zandra Rhodes and Tony Blackburn all discussing how the sixties music movement altered life and changed the culture of American and UK teens and their generation. These famous faces on the pre-recorded footage ultimately explained how sixties music inspired and shaped who they were back then and who they are today through the music they created and listened too.

Overall if you love music from the sixties, or know family who do, this show has a fun, uplifting feeling to it. It was also nice to experience a theatre style concert as the cast encouraged you to sing along and boogie in your seats. I know we certainly did.

Enjoy x


Rip It Up: The 60's Website