Box Office Enquiries: 0116 233 3111
General Enquiries: 0116 233 3113
De Montfort Hall, Granville Road, Leicester LE1 7RU
www.demontforthall.co.uk/

Performances start from this evening at the venue, at 7.45pm.

The Churchill, High Street, Bromley, Kent. BR1 1HA
Tel (General Enquiries): 020 8464 7131 (Stage Door)
Tel (Ticket Sales): 0870 060 6620 (booking fee)
www.theambassadors.com/churchill/index.html

The Isley Brothers may have written it and recorded it first, but it was Lulu who forever branded the title of this new 60s-based musical play with her unforgettable throat-wrenching introductory "weah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah'll - you know you make me wanna……..Shout." 

Like so many of the songs featured in this latest formulaic success story you know it really does make us wanna sing along - from the opening notes of Petula Clark's Downtown, to the closing notes of the inevitable, full-cast, megamix finale. 

The storyline's as thin as Twiggy's waistline at the time. Take three girls heading down to London (well, Peckham) from the north for the bright nights of the Swinging 60s and trace the seismic changes of the decade through a two-dimensional look at their lives. 

Cram in more than 30 songs from the era in no particular order - 1961's Let's Twist Again crops up in 1965, Lulu's American chart topper To Sir With Love is downgraded to 1962 and there's more Pet Clark hits than she can probably remember having. 

But it's not a night for pop anoraks any more than it's one for historians – the last year of National Service squeezes in at one end, the first man on the moon lands at the other, England won the World Cup, the Pill revolutionised sex, and package trips did the same for summer holidays. 

And everyone keeps on singing – particularly Su Pollard who does so excellently as the brash and breezy Aunty Yvonne (particularly with Cilla Black's You're My World) and Claire Sweeney who does almost as well as the liberated Ruby. 

It's another of those irresistible production shows with feelgood written right through it 

Cliffs Pavilion, Station Road, Southend-on-Sea. SS0 7RA
Tel (Enquiries): 01702 390657 
Tel (Box Office): 01702 351135
www.thecliffspavilion.co.uk

Blackpool Gay Radio was lucky enough to be able to sit down with the fabulous Su Pollard for an exclusive interview. Su was everything you would expect a truly brilliant experience that we will never forget.

Su is in Blackpool as part of the first ever UK tour of SHOUT! a groovy musical which takes you back to the fabulous, hazy days of the swinging 60's, the show also stars Claire Sweeney.

Five gorgeous woman and one lucky man twist and shout, shimmy and shake while belting out classic, timeless hits including Downtown, Son Of A Preacher Man, I Only Wanna Be With You, To Sir With Love and These Boots Are Made For Walking. One fantastic soundtrack full of terrific pop songs which made big stars out of Cilla Black, Petula Clark, Lulu and Dusty Springfield.

Set in a hair-dressing salon, the audience are taken on an incredible musical journey around swinging London, capturing the amazing fashions, sexual liberation and great fun of the times. It's groovy baby!

From the same producers as smash-hits FAME, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, FOOTLOOSE and THE WEDDING SINGER, no matter if you were a child of the 60's or born in the 90's, SHOUT is a celebration of an era everyone wishes they could have experienced, and now you can. Ready, steady go!

The Grand Theatre, 33 Church Street, Blackpool. FY1 1HT
Tel (Box Office): 01253 290190
Tel (Enquiries): 01253 290111
www.blackpoolgrand.co.uk

“They’re wonderful darling,” she gushed over the phone. 

“Most of the outfits are vintage, original ‘60s stuff. 

"It really takes me back. We get girls as young as seven coming to the stage door saying ‘I love your plastic knee-high boots and bright green PVC mac’.” 

The show, which also stars former Brookside actress Claire Sweeney, twists and shouts its way around Swinging London as the cast of five discover the fashion, freedom, fun and music that inspired original girl power. 

Audiences can shimmy and shake to the infectious, soulful songs by Petula Clark, Cilla Black, Lulu and Dusty Springfield. 

“You feel like you’ve been to one big party by the end," said Su. 

“At the finale when we all do one big mega mix. Every single person is standing up from their seats dancing around. It’s fabulous." 

Born in late 1949, Su was a teenager in the ‘60s and says the show has brought back happy memories. 

“When I walk inside the theatre it’s like a time capsule," she said. "Everything from the costumes to the set is all authentic and it’s spot-on. It’s really marvellous. In rehearsals I already knew all the words to all the songs and I remembered all the details, including my very first micro mini skirt that was so small my dad wouldn’t let me out in it. 

“I know it sounds strange but people really were happy all the time in the ‘60s. 

"People say it was the drugs, but all I remember having was some absolutely foul wine. 

"I think it was more about the freedom we had after post-war rationing.” 

Su made her TV debut on Opportunity Knocks (where she came second to a singing Jack Russell) but is, of course, best known for roles in Two Up, Two Down, Hi De Hi!, You Rang M’Lord? and Gimme Gimme Gimme. 

“People still come up to me in Marks and Spencers and hug me,” she said. 

"They remember me from different shows, which I’m proud of because I’ve done lots of different things. 

“If anybody sees us in Blackpool they shouldn’t be afraid of coming up and saying hello. We love it.” 

See Su Pollard in Shout! at Blackpool Grand Theatre from Monday, September 29 to Saturday, October 4. For tickets call 01253 290190. 

According to Timothy Leary, if you remember the Sixties you weren't really there.
Happily, the audience this week were there in force to prove him wrong, prepared to wallow contentedly in the luxury of tuneful nostalgia.

The storyline, it has to be said, is not the strongest in the world – little more than a series of snapshots of Sixties' life to which appropriate songs from the era can be attached.

What makes it so special, however, is that the vast majority of the songs were performed by some of the top British girl singers of the time – Lulu, Petula Clark, Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield.This was girl power, albeit a rather tame version as the regular appearances of the token man make clear. Girls might feel they had the world at their fingertips but they were still intent on finding a mate and then cooking his tea for him for ever after.

With Su Pollard in the cast, you know it's going to be an upbeat evening and it is.

She and her fellow performers – notably Claire Sweeney, Donna Steele and Shona White – belt out many of the numbers that helped to make the Sixties so memorable and prove without doubt that, as a decade, it was pretty unbeatable in terms of music.

The audience certainly thought so. We were standing singing along with the small but energetic cast, by the finale and revelling in every minute.

A wave of nostalgia has brought many portmanteau musicals of late: Mamma Mia and We Will Rock You relive the 70s and 80s, Never Forget the 90s - well Shout allows we aging hippies to pull on our white boots and chain belts to twist the 60s night away.

Three northern lasses head to the bright lights of Swinging London. Ruby (Claire Sweeney) is determined to make the most of the new freedom of the decade. Betty (Shona White) and Georgina (Donna Steele) join her to live with Ruby's mother hen played by Su Pollard.

She plays the role with warmth and is very endearing, seeming more comfortable in her role than the three girls.

Set in a hair-dressing salon, the audience is taken on an incredible musical journey around swinging London, capturing the amazing fashions, sexual liberation and great fun of the times. It's groovy baby!

The changes during the decade are narrated by Mark McGee using some amusing advert formats from the latest craze magazine Shout!

New inventions like tins, tights and the Milk Tray Man pop up to remind the audience of the fun, free and colourful peacock revolution of the time. There was some talk of the political upheavals and changes in censorship but the show concentrates more on the free love, fab and far out aspects leading up to the hippy era!

The emphasis was much more on songs than dance - the cast of seven sadly did not allow for much ensemble choreography - with some very powerful ballads. Top song for me was To Sir With Love, belted by Donna Steele, with many other favourites such as Downtown, Alfie and You Don't Have to Say You Love Me - all the original soulful, stirring girl power ballads.

The staging was simple, the humour gentle and full of happy reminiscences. The plot is paper thin but is hardly important. The overall message seemed to be that the more things change, the more things - and people - stay the same. Still, as the audience relived Those Were The Days My Friend, philosophy was for next week.

I truly look forward to seeing someone try to fashion a Noughties musical.

Theatre Royal Bath, Sawclose, Bath. BA1 1ET
Box Office: 01225 448844
www.theatreroyal.org.uk

Su is relishing being back on the road with Shout! and hopes that everyone who comes to see the show over the coming months has a wonderful time.

Shout is a swingin' sixties show packed with all the biggest hits from the decade and starring not only Su but Claire Sweeney too.

Su regrets that she didn't keep any of her old sixties clobber herself but says that many people probably did. "If you can still get into your mini skirt and plastic boots get them out and put them on and get down to the theatre," said Su. "It would be criminal to miss this show."

Su says she remembers being a teenager in Nottingham during the sixties and going out in lots of outrageous clothing including a skirt in which she dare not bend down. "I would go past a building site and if the men didn't whistle I would go past again and ask them why they hadn't."

Su started her career as funny woman at a very early age – six actually – when she played an angel in the school nativity play. She stood on a box to announce the arrival of the Angel Gabriel and promptly fell through the lid. It was an early lesson in the power of laughter. Anyone who remembers Hughie Green's Opportunity Knocks programme on TV might just recall a young woman singing I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No from Oklahoma who came second to a singing Jack Russell terrier. That was Su.

But having been in TV's short- lived Two Up Two Down she landed the part of Peggy in Hi De Hi! and her career has not looked back.

Next week in Shout you can hear her singing such classics as You're My world and I Only Want to Be With You while at other times you can dance in the aisles to Downtown, Son of A Preacher Man, To Sir With Love and These Boots Are Made for Walkin'.

Shout was a colourful and amusing history lesson of the swinging ’60s. 

The musical included many popular tunes of the age and followed the lives of three friends, the studious Betty (Shona White), the sex kitten Ruby (Claire Sweeney), and the actress wannabe Georgina (Donna Steele), on their arrival from the north to happening London. 

They shacked up together in a flat above a hair salon, Best Cuts, owned by Ruby’s auntie Yvonne (Su Pollard), and were avid readers of the popular magazine Shout. 

If you like your ’60s love songs and ballads, this is the show for you. If you don’t, but fancy a fun night at the theatre, this is still the show for you. 

This wasn’t a play as such, much more a musical, interspersed with some funny dialogue, mainly from the ever loveable Su Pollard. 

Tunes belted out by the cast included Downtown, You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me, and I Don’t Know What To Do With Myself. 

The ’60s were really my parents generation but I recognised some of the tunes and was swept up in the good feeling and clapping along. 

However, I was a little surprised at the lack of Beatles tunes throughout the show. 

I wouldn’t say this is a singa- long production but at the end the audlience was encouraged to stand up and take part in the finale. 

She’s egged on by Claire Sweeney who, cackling with laughter, talks about the weight of her breasts and her character being a loose woman. 

If a chat with this pair is anything to go by, their latest show will be a riot. 

Shout, a musical celebration of the swinging 60s, opens at The Mayflower on Tuesday and runs for five nights only. 

“It’s just a great fun night out,” says Claire, whose big break came when she landed the role of Lindsey Corkhill on TV’s Brookside before she became a TV and West End theatre favourite. 

“There’s every big hit you can remember from the 60s, all the big diva ballads. 

“Three girls come from up north to London and it’s all about their escapades. It’s a light and frothy script and it’s all about the songs and music and fantastic singers. 

“My character, oh, she’s loose! 

She likes her blokes and she ends up falling for a Spanish waiter! 

“It’s not like there’s an immersing plot or anything, it’s all about the songs.” 

Su, best known for her famed TV role as chalet maid Peggy in Hi-de- Hi, interrupts Claire often. 

Speaking in her distinctive deep voice, she is every bit as overexcitable as Peggy was. 

“There’s one token chap in it,” she giggles. 

“I play Yvonne. She came down from Manchester to try her luck and now runs a hairdressing salon. 

“My niece Ruby, played by Claire, decides to try her luck too and just so happens to meet two girls on the train who also want to try their luck in London. 

“It covers a ten-year period from 1960 to 1970 with all the big songs.” 

It’s clear as the pair talk backstage at The Mayflower open day last weekend that the cast of Shout have a lot of fun. 

But what is it about this show that works them both into such a frenzy? 

Sipping tea as she thinks, 37- year-old Claire muses: “It’s just a feelgood thing. It doesn’t matter if you’re three or 103 it makes you feel good. 

“It’s lovely to see kids dancing in the aisles and the thing I like about the show is it’s not targeted at one audience. 

Families love it, it’s good for hen nights and even for blokes, who get to see a bit of totty on stage. There’s a really good calibre of West End singers in this show.” 

Su, sporting giant red star earrings, chips in: “Unfortunately people don’t expect to hear a live band any more, but you really get your money’s worth here. 

The set is small but effective and you really have a great night.” 

Claire continues: “It’s the first tour I’ve ever done and it’s come at a great time in my life. To be on the road with five girls is great and we’ve really bonded. 

We’ve become very close and the friendship that we’ve forged transfers on to stage. It’s like girl power! I’ve also absolutely fallen in love with England and been to so many places I wouldn’t go to normally. 

“Even some of the big musicals I’ve done like Chicago and Guys and Dolls have had quite straight serious elements to them, but this is the first one I’ve done which is so interactive and where people get up and dance at the end. 

“We’d never done anything like it before. We laughed after the first night, we said it felt like a rock concert and we felt like Madonna!” 

“Oh yeah,” giggles Su, the 58–year-old star of You Rang M’ Lord, “it was so joyful. It was a bit like Lazarus and the second coming. 

One woman jumped out of her chair to do a bit of dancing!” 

The pair, who have been apart for the summer while the show took a short break, have a lot to catch up on and are soon ignoring the gathered journalists and staff and gossiping among themselves. 

Sipping tea and munching on nuts, Claire sighs: “Do you know what I love? I don’t have to go to the gym! 

It’s all singing and dancing for two hours.” 

Su admits to having gained 12lbs over the summer and Claire two stones. 

“A stone on each breast,” she giggles while pointing her ample cleavage at the video camera before her. 

If the obvious chemistry between these two transfers to the stage, Mayflower audiences are in for a treat next week. 

This addition also marks eight years of Su Online. Yes! It was the website's birthday on 10th September, so this is a nice way of celebrating this landmark too.

The Shout! section has reviews of the show, selected interviews with Su talking about Shout!, some fantastic pictures of Su, Claire and the cast, Su quotes, a rundown of the cast, full tour dates from the Spring/Summer and Autumn tours, the complete songlist/musical numbers performed, and the link to the Official Shout! website.

Plus a little something extra sepcial for all Su fans. We have compiled some of the wonderful comments Su has attracted playing Yvonne in Shout! These are some of the ravest reviews Su has received in a career that spans almost 40 years!

You will need Adobe Flash Player 9 installed on your PC to view this.

But former Hi-De-Hi star Su Pollard will be playing second fiddle to no-one when she appears in this year's Grand Theatre fairytale extravaganza Cinderella.

Su, who has a long list of illustrious credits to her name, will be playing baroness Hard-Up.
It will be the first time she has appeared in Cinderella.

And though she is looking forward to the experience, she admits it will be a test.

"This is a bit of a change in direction for me. It is a challenge. I have never done Cinderella before and playing a Baroness — it has always been Baron Hard-Up," she said.

But she has no worries about the show, which runs from December 17 to January 18, being a success.
And that is down to the director Chris Jarvis, of CBeebies fame.

"He is directing the show and also playing the part of Buttons. He is very experienced and has done this show five or six times before. She added: "Everyone will oooh and aaah."

But how does she feel about playing a wicked character?

"It is really cruel. I shall probably get booed out of Wales, never to return again!
"Please don't hate me for it though. I'm only acting!"

Providing experience and laughs alongside Su is one of Wales's most popular entertainment personalities, Kevin Johns, who is well-known for his panto roles at the Grand.

Cinderella will be his 11th appearance at the Grand and his 10th in succession. "This is my second time as an ugly sister and my third time in Cinderella," he said. "I particularly enjoy being in panto in Swansea. I'm very privileged to be doing it here. As long as I am asked, I will keep coming back," said Kevin, who is a radio presenter at Swansea Sound.

"The production is very traditional though it will be unusual to have a baroness. I have always worked with a baron.

"Su is going to be so fantastic as the baroness. I think it is good that she's come here. She is quite an iconic name in British comedy theatre. I think people will really want to see her."

Playing the part of Cinders will be Nia Jermin, aged 21, who hails from Pontlliw. She arrives after a year-long stint in South Pacific.

The part is a big step up for her — last year she was one of the dancers in Dick Whittington.
"It is a fantastic opportunity. I can't wait," she said. "This is the biggest part I have ever played."

And how does she feel about sharing the stage with Su and Kevin?

"It's brilliant. Both of them have got great energy. It is infectious."

And both Howard and his shop have now marked 60 years in the heart of the Radford community.

"My mother bought this shop when she was carrying me," he said.

Before it was called H & Co, the shop was known simply as Hutchings – and before that it was named after his late mother, Marion.

"I don't think there's many left alive who'll remember us as Marion's," he said.

Some customers I've been seeing every week for the last 40 years. At that point in time, they're no longer just a customer."

The oldest customer is 93. In the decades that Howard has run the hair salon in Radford Boulevard, he's got to know more than a few regular customers – "from granddaughters to grandfathers," as he puts it.

But he'd rather cater to everyone than be fashionable.

"As you get older you're not as fashionable as the teenagers," he said. "You might develop a better sense of style, but you won't be as fashionable."

He remembers one teenage customer from many years ago, Su Pollard, who lived nearby at the bottom of Alfreton Road.

"Even as a teenager, she had a good personality," he said.

Howard runs a traditional salon where people can catch up with friends and be part of the community. Howard's mother began the business in 1945, but for the first three years ran it from the family's Berridge Road home. Howard progressed from 14-year-old apprentice to partner to full owner when his mother retired at 75.

Staff member Rebecca Ensor came to work for Howard as a trainee straight out of school. Almost nine years later, she has no plans to leave.

"I've always been happy here – it's been lovely," she said. "We can have a laugh and it's just nice being close to the customers."