Roald Dahl to Rydell - Matilda and Grease (and me)

 

My next blog post takes us to 2012 with two musicals that might not seem to have anything in common but have the common link of school, Grease and Matilda. In February 2012, when I was 11 (nearly 12) I went to see a professional production of Grease in Aberdeen (programme above) on a trip with Song Shop, the musical theatre group in our town, Montrose, that I was part of, and we even ended up putting on Grease, the following year (programme below). Around a month after seeing Grease in Aberdeen, I saw the Matilda musical in London (programme above). I’m pretty sure it was the West End this time as it was at the Cambridge Theatre near Covent Garden.

  These musicals are very different, in terms of style, plot, themes and the type of songs that feature in them. However, school is an important aspect of both shows and while Matilda tells of primary school and the early days of education and Grease recounts the very end of the high school careers of the main characters, some parallels could be drawn between both of these stories and my own experience. Therefore, this post, like most musicals and parts of school, is split into two acts.

Act I – Matilda

This started as a book by Roald Dahl, which was first published in 1988 (Dahl died in 1990 and this was one of his last works). The film came out in 1996, directed by Danny DeVito and starring Mara Wilson. The musical was developed by the Royal Shakespeare Company and was first seen in 2010 (music and lyrics by Tim Minchin, book by Dennis Kelly).

 So, primary school! Obviously, we all have our own experiences of school, which are all totally valid. Personally, on the whole, I liked school, but as for most people, it wasn’t all easy. I always stood out, with being so short with red hair, and I always felt different too, like I couldn’t quite understand the other kids in my class, what their priorities were and how they related to each other. Also I wasn’t gifted, or particularly interested, in sports like the more popular girls at school seemed to be. Hilariously, I even joined the girls’ football team in primary school for about a minute, but was probably more invested in the clothes (or is it kit? I’ve probably even got the terminology wrong here). At school, I was a bit more of a Matilda, in terms of liking books and confiding perhaps a bit too much in kindly teachers, playground assistants and librarians, though sadly I lacked the magic mind powers and telekinesis. In all honesty, it’s been quite a while since I watched the classic Matilda film but I was a huge fan of the story in all its forms and adaptations as a child. The musical of Matilda, with music and lyrics by Australian songwriter and comedian, Tim Minchin, manages to be different to the film but equally powerful, as it has the nostalgia of a comforting, familiar story of good and innocence winning against evil, whilst giving some different or fleshed out backstories and perspectives in some of the songs. One new aspect of the dreadful Wormwood parents in the musical is that they are into ballroom dancing, but one aspect kept from the book is that watching too much TV is one of their greatest sins (and I cannot criticise either of these things, being just a little into TV myself and Strictly Come Dancing/Dancing with the Stars in particular). Arguably, one of the stand-out songs is ‘When I grow up’, which is sung at the beginning of the second act by the children at the cruel Miss Trunchbull*’s school as they embody childhood innocence sitting on swings and imagining a better future for when they’re older. Towards the end of the song there is a mash-up of ‘When I grow up’ and another song ‘Naughty’ (with Matilda singing about how she can rewrite and change her story) and this is extremely effective and really gets you invested in a whole new way in these characters that you thought you already knew. Also, whilst not many people can necessarily relate to Matilda’s exact situation with the magic powers, it is possible to relate to that idea of changing or rewriting our story after feeling powerless to do so, as a life can change and be turned around and it can sometimes be hard to tell which act of our story we’re in.

 

The song ‘When I grow up’ took on a whole new meaning for me when I got a life-changing health diagnosis in January 2015, aged nearly fifteen. The condition that I was diagnosed with is a pretty rare one called Turner Syndrome, which affects development in girls and women. Turner Syndrome can affect people differently, but for me, like the majority of young women with it, it means that I’m very short and was a bit delayed in reaching adolescence and puberty, as with TS, unless you get the right medication, your body doesn’t make the natural changes that a lot of people go through in their teen years. As the reason that I even went to an appointment that resulted in getting the diagnosis, was because I was in my early teens and wasn’t really growing or changing in the expected way, the lyrics in ‘When I grow up’, especially the lyrics about growing tall, really resonated and took on a different meaning for me. This is because, while growing up can present unique challenges for everyone, it was certainly clearer than ever after getting the diagnosis that growing up would be so hard and different for me, as despite my good fortune in some respects, I’d still face a lot of struggles that others wouldn’t have to at all stages of life. And while I do feel differently now to the day that we found out, this all took a long time to come to terms with. The children in the Matilda musical sing “When I grow up/ I will be strong enough to carry all/ the heavy things you have to haul around with you/ when you’re a grown up” and one of the reasons that this works so well is that we all have to deal with “heavy things” sooner or later. I’m more capable of carrying mine than people might imagine but I still have plenty of low days. However, talking about them is quite a new thing for me, so that's a bit more positive.

Act II – Grease

First seen in Chicago 1971 as a stage musical (written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey), Grease was on Broadway a year later and the West End a year after that. The film came out in 1978, directed by Randal Kleiser and starring Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta. 

  In many ways, Grease tells a very different story, as the characters are about to graduate high school (and the actors in the movie musical were mostly a lot more… mature than that, even.) For most Grease fans, the musical’s all about friendship and good times, as it’s an iconic, well-known story with such famous, catchy songs, and it is generally a fun musical. One thing that made it different from so many popular musicals of the time was the style of the music. Set in the late 1950s, the music very much reflects the time and era. For younger viewers, there’s even a small connection between the iconic Pink Ladies of Grease and the Plastics from Mean Girls (a film that was hugely influential on my generation – I have seen it more times than I care to mention), as they both wear pink and take someone who’s completely different from them into their group. I don’t know if it’s the film/literature student in me, but I always tend to analyse characterisation and relationships in fiction and I appreciate character growth and insight into a different side to a character and would therefore always choose Rizzo’s ‘There are worse things I could do’ as my all-time favourite Grease song. Sandy and Danny may have the more conventional love songs and focus but, for me, Rizzo has the heart.

 Page from my Aberdeen Grease programme

While I couldn’t quite relate to any of the Pink Ladies or Sandy’s summer romance or catsuit transformation at the end (as a 12 year old), there are some aspects of Sandy that I certainly could relate to for several reasons. For instance, partly due to having Turner Syndrome, I’ve always felt a bit behind my peers in growing up and reaching grown-up milestones and have often tried to hold on to whatever little traces of growing up or (hopefully) maturing that I can. Therefore, the sleepover scene in Grease, when Sandy feels that Frenchy, Marty, Jan and Rizzo think of her as a goody-two-shoes and have done more supposedly adult things than she has, such as drinking or partying, was quite relatable for me as a young nearly teenager. It probably could be said that, at certain times, I have been a bit of a goody-two-shoes or less outgoing and adventurous than other young people, which could be related to the health condition and the confusing feelings that I have about getting older and becoming an adult and all aspects of young adult/adult life, because of my TS. However, it could also be that while I worry about what others think and don’t want to seem boring, I’ve also always had a pathological hatred of the idea of being reprimanded in any way. It’s complicated but as Sandy sings in “Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee”: “there has to be something more than what they see”. And for all of us that’s true, isn’t it?

 

There are several Turner Syndrome support societies and the UK one can be found here.

 *In the film, Miss Trunchbull is played by Pam Ferris, but the character is usually played by a man in the musical, in a pantomime dame style.