Jonny Woo(s) in tight-fitting tribute to children's TV favourite

There has, perhaps, in the whole history of televisual entertainment as we know it, never been a more watertight case for bringing guns into our school yards and encouraging children just to go ahead and put themselves out of their own misery, than the Grange Hill cast's (s)hit 80s pop single, 'Just Say No'.

Even two decades on, looking back at the video does not so much fill us with nostalgia as stir the serious urge to score some smack and bury the memory. We've heard the expression 'Their parents should be shot' used in reference to neighbourhood tearaways who make an obnoxious nuisance of themselves, but if we'd just gone ahead and shot the 'Just Say No' kids, perhaps we'd have crushed the most significant serial cultural crime of the 80s at source, and maybe the adult TV personalities who followed in their footsteps would have thunk fuggin' twice about it (cf: Nick Berry's Every Loser Wins and Anita Dobson's Anyone Can Fall in Love).

But you can't turn back time. And, unforgivable forays into the world of pop notwithstanding, the show itself delivered some legendary scenes: Zammo getting caught with drugs in the locker room; bully, Gripper Stebson, getting his just desserts; Kevin Jenkins unwittingly tripping his tits off on acid and being asked to explain fractions in Maths ....

In its heyday, Grange Hill was great; and in the wake of news in February that the BBC is axing the programme, Jonny Woo and his twisted troop of lip-synching sidekicks have captured something of the Grange Hill spirit at its best, and created the perfect tribute in their hilarious new show at Bistrotheque.

Strange Hill is billed as a lip-synching musical that fuses Grange Hill, Fame and Lord of the Flies. Four kids are held in detention - the school slut (Jonny Woo), the snobby toffette (Spanky), the mystical witchy-type (Richardette), and a boy with gender dysphoria (Lisa Lee). It's the last day of term and each of the pupils feels the pinch of injustice. The wonky weirdness that ensues includes a seance, a sex-change, a stalker and some missing smalls.

Framed by the kind of bonkers random lip-synching routines that were central to the cult show A Night of a Thousand Jay Astons , Strange Hill manages to be seriously and contagiously silly but, crammed with references, it's also smart and satirical. Jonny Woo galvanises the show with the air of a flirtatious ringmaster, and the other three performers each have their show-stealing moments. Richardette is knicker-wettingly funny from the moment he appears, Spanky is spot-on as the precious princess, and Lisa Lee's fabulous transformation from shuffling spotty pubertal schoolboy to sizzling showgirl is a treat worth the ticket price alone.

Strange Hill runs Wed-Sat until the end of April, and Thurs-Sat through May and June

Timberlina will perform in place of Jonny Woo Fri & Sats in May/June

Box office 08700 600 100 / www.bistrotheque.com

Written by Dickie on 23 Apr 2008 5:37 PM. Permalink