REVIEW: Dreamboats and Petticoats: Bringing on Back the Good Times at Newcastle Theatre Royal ★★

On Tuesday evening, we headed back to the Theatre Royal to catch the third instalment of the Dreamboats and Petticoats musical series. I had never seen the first two musicals, so was intrigued to see what the franchise would bring. Obviously I was expecting lots of 50s and 60s music but went into the show relatively clueless about what these shows usually entail.

One thing I will say about this show is that whilst I personally didn't enjoy it, the older generations who made up most of the audience that evening absolutely loved it! I know I'm not their target audience so I'm glad that those who were absolutely loved it. It included a lot of music from the 1950s and 1960s, many of which I was familiar with but there was quite a few that I hadn't heard before. It included songs like 'Pretty Woman,' '(Is This the Way to) Amarillo,' and 'Blue Moon,' all of which I was familiar with and could clap along to. For those in the audience who grew up with this music, it was a trip down memory lane and you could see how much they enjoyed the music.

The characters were all pleasant, with no-one you really disliked throughout the show and I enjoyed that all the music was done by onstage musicians (who also played various different characters throughout the show too!). I also enjoyed the music because the actors/actresses all had brilliant voices - I would love to see any of them doing something else in the future.

For me, the thing that let it down for me was the storyline. As a musical, I expected there to be more of a storyline which the songs fitted nicely into, but for this show unfortunately they felt like they were just shoehorned in for the sake of it. Having never seen this type of show before, I wasn't expecting this to be the case but after speaking to some more people it seems that this is quite common. Due to the lack of storyline, I wasn't kept engaged all the way through and got quite bored throughout the show.

As I've said, whilst I didn't like this show, I know many people really enjoyed it so don't let this put you off. If you're happy to sit and listen to some really good renditions of 50s and 60s songs, I think you'll definitely enjoy this show. I think if I was to go and see another show like this, I would go in with open eyes, knowing that I should only really go for the music.