The Drifters Girl - Newcastle TR / Garrick / U.K. Tour

I’d like to think given her status as one of the UK’s best female singers and a career spanning 20+ years now that people would know who she is, and don’t forget she did Starstruck on ITV recently…

Saw the show Thursday afternoon and loved it, the sound was great as was the set and the cast worked their socks off. I did find the story line a bit confusing because I knew nothing about The Drifters before seeing the show.

Vanessa will be on for Bev both shows on Wednesday if anyone wants to catch her

I'll be there for her final night! It seemed so far off when I booked in March!

Beverley Knight has teased that she will return to The Drifters Girl, presumably after finishing her run in Sister Act.

Maybe she’s taking the show to Broadway, or on tour, or something else

No, he tweeted a couple of days ago to say he was off Friday and Sat as he’s going to a wedding, so last night was the last performance of all the original cast 😢

Yesterday I saw The Drifters Girl for the second time. This show has a cast of six who all work incredibly hard: Four guys play lots of different members of the four person band The Drifters. Beverley Knight plays the lady who managed them and there is a girl who Beverley is narrating the story to.

I previously saw Beverley’s understudy, a fantastic actress called Vanessa Ela Young. Beverley plays the role with a much thicker South American accent, which some people don’t like but I rather enjoyed. Beverley has by far the stronger singing voice and raises the roof at the end of her six or so songs, from the lively Nobody but Me but to the eleven o’clock number Harlem Child.

But most of the songs go, rightfully, to The Drifters. This time I saw Matt Henry as the group’s founding member (having previously seen his understudy Curtis Scott). Matt won an Olivier Award for playing Drag Queen Lola in Kinky Boots and he gets chance to show off his feminine side in this role too. Matt has such a wonderful singing voice. Although, I have to say that Curtis was en par with Matt.

Last time I saw the show, Tosh Wanogho-Maud was the standout. Tosh gets to sing one of the main solos, Stand by Me, and he sang it exactly as Ben E. King would have. His performance as Rudy Lewis was so heartwrenching. Tosh’s understudy Ashford Campbell does an excellent job and if you’d not seen Tosh in the role then I’m sure you would come away thinking his performance was one of the best.

Having now seen the full principal cast, I can say that Tosh is my favourite but Tarinn Callendar, who goes from singing deep parts of The Drifters’ songs to high parts, is also one of those performers that you can’t take your eyes off.

This is such a feel good show, packed full of songs that lift the spirits. The talent on the stage is incredible to watch. I even became more invested in the book this time.

This is incredible! I miss muck up matinees, these are some nice subtle hints.

I saw the show last week. Wednesday matinee and audiences behaved really well. Start of act 2 had a little bit of singing but the sound design was great that you could barely hear it. School trip were on the upper level and couldn't hear them either from the stalls. You should be fine! Enjoy the show, some real talent on that stage!

Yes, I’ve seen it three times (once in dress circle/twice in stalls) and thankfully haven’t seen any of the awful behaviour others have had to witness. Fingers crossed you’ll be fine. Plus based on where your seats are you’re pretty close to the side door where the ushers hover so if anyone’s awful it’ll be easy enough to find one of the team and ask them to deal with the offending audience member/s!