'Rock Follies' at the Minerva Theatre , Chichester

Do you remember 'Rock Follies', the mid-70s series about a girl group?  Think carefully now, it was a long time ago. The series spawned two massive albums in 1976 and 1977 and even a top 30 single. Fans will have bought the albums on vinyl and then CDs and also invested in the DVDs of the series' and kept the memory alive. It starred Julie Covington, Charlotte Cornwall and Rula Lenska, that bloke who went on to be the mainstay of 'Casualty' and a range of other faces that became familiar on telly. Even Tim Curry had a role in one episode as a rock star.  Yes, *that* Rock Follies.  

'Rock Follies' is the new show at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester so I had to go down to see it and I'm very pleased I did. It was fab! OK, I'm biased but so what?

When I got to the theatre I could hear background music and stood for a moment thinking ‘I know this song’... and it was ‘A touch too much’ by Arrow! I was all whaaaat? To set the scene they were playing a 70s compilation which was nice but whoever chose it clearly wasn’t alive at the time of ‘Rock Follies’ since it wasn’t all that appropriate. A nice touch though. Then the audience started drifting in, mostly old (as with every matinee). But I couldn’t decide if they were ‘Rock Follies’ fans or just Chichester locals who go to every matinee as an afternoon out. I was probably in the younger third of the audience.

And then it was the main event! Zizi Strallen as Q, Carly Bawden as Anna and Angela Marie Hurst as Dee. It opened with ‘Broadway Annie’ as the girls are struggling actresses and Anna gets fired with Q and Dee resigning in solidarity and then meeting up in the pub afterwards to sing ‘Blueberry Hill’ and hatch the idea of a group. They didn’t really need the ‘Broadway Annie’ sequence and could’ve easily started in another way but maybe the full story was part of the agreement on gaining the rights to the show? Who knows? The first real, full song was ‘Outlaws’ as they decided to form the band and then lines from ‘Stairway’ as it develops to the first full song of ‘Little Ladies’ for their first proper performance on the small stage. 

Most of the songs were shortened, just a verse and chorus, to fit them in, which was both good fun and quite frustrating at the same time. Clearly they wanted to fit in as much as possible - which is good - but maybe a few full length songs would’ve been good too. I got a bit annoyed every now and then when they gave their songs to other characters, such as ‘Hot Neon’ was given to the rock star Stevie Streeter (ie the Tim Currie character) to sing with them as backing singers in dustbins.  

Their first single is ‘Struttin’ Ground’ and that’s where Dee sings Anna’s vocals (rather than in ‘OK’). I always think of the market off Victoria Street with that song, on Strutton Ground, where I sometimes went for lunch when I worked. They somehow end up on Top of the Pops with a very stereotyped presenter (who’s already playe
d a couple of roles by now). That’s when the problems start and Anna starts going off on booze and drugs. And then Roxy appears to complicate matters. I wasn’t keen on what they did with her character, making her too ambitious and a bit of a gold-digger, only with the record producer to get her into the group and then a solo career - that wasn’t the Roxy in the series.

Anyway, after Top of the Pops, this is where the story starts changing. The girls start arguing in the dressing room and Q gets fed up with always being in the middle and soothing egos and declares that she has a voice too and launches into a full-on rock star version of ‘OK’ with flashing lights and screaming guitar and Zizi letting rip with her vocals! Big wow moment! Why haven’t they used all these lights before? It was a big reveal but why so late in the show?  After the song she announces she’s leaving the band and strides off.

After Anna's sacked we're left with just Dee and Roxy as the Little Ladies and somehow they’re big in America and have spent 6 weeks at No 1 in America with ‘Biba Nova’. I loved this bit - We’re all gonna live forever! - and got a bit teary even though the costumes weren’t good (well, awful is closer really). They’re on a telly programme in America and in the interval Dee says she can’t work with Roxy anymore and the band splits up with Roxy wanting a solo career. 

The end. Or is it? I won't say any more in case you're going to see it but It's good and Dee becomes a global superstar. At the end she invites Q and Anna to join her on stage for a few lines of ‘Good Behaviour’ (a la Dream Girls in a ‘without these girls I wouldn’t be here’ moment). Lights out and clap clap clap!

I loved it! It wasn’t perfect but that’s not the point. A lot of it was a bit copy-cat, just following the story from the series.I liked that, but trying to squeeze the whole of the story across both series’s into 2:45 hours would always be a challenge. I quite liked it when the writer (Chloe Moss) took her flights of fancy and invented the story afresh. I liked that the programme said it was ‘In memory of Charlotte Cornwell 1949- 2021’ who played the original Anna on telly.