BrumHour saw Club Tropicana The Musical the invitation of Belgrade Theatre.
For Brum Radio’s Interval Theatre, BrumHour’s Dave Massey spoke to Kate Robbins about Club Tropicana. Listen below:
By Dave Massey twitter.com/BrumHour
Club Tropicana The Musical
at Belgrade Theatre
Written by Michael Gyngell, Directed by Samuel Holmes and Nick Winston
Back comb your hair, throw on your shortest shorts, dig out your neon sweatbands as the 80’s have landed in Coventry until 11th May with Club Tropicana The Musical at Belgrade Theatre.
Club Tropicana Hotel owner Serena (Amelle Berrabah) and manager Robert (Neil McDermott) know a hotel inspector is coming and they spring into action getting their Entertainment Manager Garry (Joe McElderry) and Consuela, the cleaner (Kate Robbins) to help ramp things up. It’s at that point the demanding Christine (Camilla Rowland – at this performance) turns up with high expectations.
At the same time in England, Olly (Cellen Chugg Jones) has been ditched at the altar by his fiancee Lorraine (Karina Hind). Lorraine has decided to go on the honeymoon with Tracey (Rebecca Mendoza) and Andrea (Tara Verloop), Olly’s mates Blaine (Kane Verrall) and Drew (Rory Phelan) drag him unknowingly to the same hotel, Club Tropicana Hotel..
The plot itself has traditional french farce traits and the idea of the two main lovers being in the same hotel and even on the same dancefloor without seeing each other is just brashly ignored but like the 80’s you are there just for the ride!
If you don’t like 80’s music you might be a bit scuppered by this unashamedly 80’s pastel coloured, view of late 80’s holiday life. See I said 80’s three times in that one sentence just to hammer home the point. I love the 80’s from rubik’s cubes to oversize ghetto blasters and rollerskates, so I loved Oops Upside Your Head, Take on Me, Temptation, Too Shy and especially Making your Mind up.
Kate Robbins and Joe McElderry steal scenes throughout this warm, friendly and hugely fun show, Kate Robbins has a fantastic range of voices and wastes no time showing how great she is, and Joe McElderry glides, skips and dances his way through the entire show, as well as demonstrating why he won X Factor.
There’s a panto style arrival from Joe McElderry the main curtain comes down after the prologue as he welcomes us, the audience to the show and makes everyone get on their feet. The audience clearly had a fantastic time even before the show there’s hit after hit of 80’s music playing in the theatre and throughout the interval.
Check out this fantastic night out at Belgrade Theatre all this week. Book tickets here:
belgrade.co.uk/event/club-tropicana
This isn’t a sponsored post.
When not writing about theatre for BrumHour, or producing Interval Theatre for Brum Radio (Tuesdays 3pm) brumradio.com/intervaltheatre, Dave Massey can be found eating crisps and claiming to be at the gym. And tweeting about Birmingham for #BrumHour.
