Grosvenor In View Magazine 2025

66

DRAMA & MUSIC

Drama

Back to The Eighties

her type: you’ve seen the movies. To capture our American hero’s adolescent heart, a girl needs brains, beauty, and the ability to belt out a tune whilst wearing neon leg-warmers- call for Mia Bovill. The great thing about this year’s show was that we had the same old spotlights, but new talent to grace them. Mia and Kaeden did just that…and then some. The Eighties was a time of fast-fashion and slow dances and who had a stiletto heel in both of those areas? Why, Madonna of course! But Madonna never had the sass of our Ellen. Miss Patton’s Cindy Gibson wasn’t just pretty in pink, she was imperious! Perspective suitors lined up, only to be shot down by a girl who knew her worth. We, as an audience, certainly knew Ellen’s. One of the fabulous things about time-travel, or so I’ve been told by a Doctor friend of mine, but I can’t quite remember Who, is that it allows you to see where greatness starts, where the kernel of genius is seeded. For all who saw the fluorescent splendour of our version of ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’, is seems Silicon Valley can trace its ancestry back to the stage of The William Moles Hall. Steve Jobs was never so interesting as when Harry Douglas gave him wit, wisdom and a wonderfully -well fitted turtle-neck jumper! And who knew that the true visionary of the computer age, wasn’t Mr Jobs or indeed his annoying friend ‘Gatesy’, but our very own Fergal McFerran the Third. Yes, Charlie Adams donned the braces and took us to places where our jaws hurt from laughing. He sang, he danced, he did hard sums, and he was, at all times, resplendent! Radiating positivity was Neve Calderwood. Her character, Eileen, was new to William Ocean High, but

Prior to January 2025, the notion of going ‘back to the Eighties’ would have instilled in me a bone-numbing dread. Those of us who lived through the era of shaggy-perms, neon shell-suits and The Birdie Song have, through the strength of support groups, put those days behind us. No going back! But then, along came the youthful Mr Arnold’s suggestion…and suddenly, the music took over. Bonnie Tyler, Cyndi Lauper, Kenny Loggins, The Jay Geils Band. Bangers! The fashion of the Eighties is at best questionable, but there is no doubt that the decade’s music represents a riotous celebration of being young. And so it began. If we had live-streamed our auditions, I guarantee that Simon Cowell and Louis Walsh would have been parked in the school’s turning circle in blacked out SUVs within twenty-four hours. We had enough talent in B110 to assemble a chart-full of boy bands. So often, I begin my magazine articles by focusing on the leading lady, but this time, ‘Let’s Hear it for the Boy’! ‘Back to the Eighties’ is a musical that has more of a story thread than a storyline: the narrative is forgettable. Yet, Kaeden Curran’s performance was anything but. He was a concert-planning, scooter-riding, Sith Lord- fighting supremo. His character, Corey Feldman is meant to be the typical American boy-next-door: overlooked and undervalued. In no universe could our Kaeden be. When he sang, we swooned. Kaeden may have held the audience in the palm of his hand, but for his alter-ego, Corey, the only hand worth holding was that of Tiffany Houston. You know

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