Reviews
Kinda Love
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Incredible
Girl In the Moon
Dive In
The Dive In Tour
Sink or Swim
Kinda Love
Live Twice
DARIUS DANESH clearly couldn’t keep his hands to himself at a party thrown by BRITNEY SPEARS.
The singer arrived with girlfriend JACQUI AINSLEY who was sporting a fetching pair of fishnet tights.
But as the night drew to a close, Jacqui had discarded them as they chatted quietly in a corridor.
Now what could the randy pair — who met on the set of Darius’ video Colourblind — have been up to?
They were just two of the guests at Britney’s £100,000 weekend bash, held at the Rex Cinema Bar in London.
Does this album really need an introduction? Some of the biggest names in pop (and a couple whose presence certainly raises a few eyebrows) have come together to celebrate and pay tribute to one of the corniest but greatest musicals every made - Grease. Any devotee of the film will recognise the classic songs included on this CD while every pop fan will be intrigued to see plenty of famous stars trying something a little different.
Opening, naturally, with the theme song Grease, Gareth Gates kicks off proceedings with what is one of the strongest tracks. After Summer Nights from Robbie's mate Jonathan Wilkes and Coronation Street's Suranne Jones (how did that come about?), Girls Aloud shimmy in with the gorgeous Hopelessly Devoted To You.
Other highlights include Westlife roughing it up with Greased Lightning and S Club 8's Tears On My Pillow, but if you ask us, we absolutely adore Sandy by Darius. You'd think the Scot would go into full croon overload with this, but instead he slams full throttle into a rockfest that'll have you shouting along into your hairbrush.
Along with Sarah Whatmore, Samantha Mumba, Lisa Scott-Lee and (gulp) The Cheeky Girls, this is pure cheese you won't actually be embarrassed about playing in front of your mates. If you're not already one of the converted, listen to this and you really will believe Grease is the word.
TOO long into Greasemania (ITV1, last night) and Lisa Scott Lee is singing There Are Worse Things I Could Do.
Objection, your honour: The defendant is clearly deluded. And let's not forget, she was in Steps.
Greasemania. So called because you'd have to be mad to watch and insane to take part.
The lies started early for Amanda Holden - "The studio has been transformed into Rydale High."
The fact that this "transformation" involved a couple of benches and some "Summertime Special" dancers waving pom-poms was a fair indication of how low-rent this show would turn out.
No-one stooped lower than Amanda, the very antithesis of Sandra Dee. Sandra Dee-lister more like. Here she was in the very studios where her career began on Blind Date.
It would have been nice if, men aside, she'd picked a few things up on her journey to fame.
A personality for example. Then her performance wouldn't have been littered with banalities like, "I don't know what to say", and "well, what can I say?"
To be fair this did call to mind another classic High School flick. Clueless.
The turns weren't much better. I recall Grease being full of wit, charm and high energy dance routines. What did we get? Girls Aloud awkwardly perched on stools slaughtering Hopelessly Devoted To You.
And Gareth Gates sounding like he too was struggling with stools during a bizarre Michael Jackson-like Grease Is The Word. (I really can't discuss Gareth's new haircut without using the words "special" and "needs" so I best leave it).
Jonathan Wilkes and Suranne Jones did a passable Summer Nights before the Cheeky Girls proclaimed We Go Together - a prospect which may well interest certain men I know. The girls are looking even more freaky than usual, but I'm sure it was just coincidence that the letters on their vests spelt "GM".
Reborn In The USA world champion Tony Hadley popped in for Beauty School Dropout which gave Amanda the chance to engage in chat.
Oh dear. "Is there anything you could advise me on about my appearance?" she asked. Dunno, Amanda - get your agent to pull you out? Next up Westlife did Greased Lightnin' - the clean version. Well, even they had enough integrity to not sing a line like "You know it ain't sh*t" when clearly it was. Amanda then decided to send a message to Les Dennis. "Ladies, have we ever thought what being dumped was like for the fellas? Do we care? Nah." Meanwhile Darius did his best not to be noticed by wearing a camouflage jacket during an ill-advised "rock" version of Sandy. Sadly the only way he could have melted into the background on this show was if he'd smeared himself with, well, you know what. The finale saw the artists appearing in a line-up on stage. A bit harsh on Cheryl Tweedy considering the week she's just had. Amanda even joined in but as she mouthed You're The One That I Want and winked into the camera only one thing went through my mind. Fear. Cold fear.
Teletext 13 October 2003
The idea of this CD seems to be - the movie version of Grease is 25 years old lets get some pop singers to ruin the memory for everyone.
Greasemania is the soundtrack to a forthcoming ITV spectacular and features great songs being mangled.
Worst of all is Westlife's version of Greased Lightening with rude words cleaned up. The only entirely decent moment comes with the skater-rock version of the sappy Sandy by Darius
Do you like the movie Grease? And do you like processed-cheese, production-line pop? Then Greasemania! is the album you’ve been waiting for your entire life: the classic musical regurgitated by a galaxy of talentless whoopers, from Girls Aloud to Jonathan Wilkes, Lisa Scott-Lee to Gareth Gates. That’s a whole lot of cruddiness going on but one of the worst tracks comes from oor ain Darius, who contributes a nauseating version of Sandy. As coldly calculating as a serial killer, this is a truly horrible record. I’ve got chills, they’re multiplying. And I’m losing the will to live.
Pop Idol Darius insisted on putting pen to paper for GLAMOUR
Found the ideal man but not the ideal love? If you're missing self-love, your partner's love can't make you feel happy - and Ben and Jerry only offer a quick fix.
Despite what Sex and the City might have you believe, dinner at Nobu and a new Gucci bag doesn't lead to finding love if you're not loving you. But how do you go about doing that? You need to accept who you are and be proud of it. After my Popstars humiliation and a press landslide, it took the love of an amazing girl, the nation's vote on Pop Idol and a song called Colourblind for me to be unconditionally proud of who I am. If you learn to love yourself before you're 30, you're one of the lucky ones! And when you do, you'll wake one morning in a lover's arms and realise what true love is.
However, there is no perfect love. We're constantly looking for our role in the ultimate love story, epitomised by the romance of Romeo & Juliet. Love shouldn't be an ideal, but something real. So kick back, grab a man and a bottle of bubbly, step out of your Gina heels and let your CD collection take you on a love trip. The Walrus of Love, Mr Barry White can be your guide, and Marvin Gaye is close at hand to give you some Sexual Healing. The greatest lesson in life is to learn to love and be loved. All we need is love. Are you ready for love? Yes I am, Yes I am, Oh yeah......Never mind finding true love, I think I've found an idea for a new song.....
Darius' new book, Sink or Swim (Headline, £14.99) is out now.
Gareth Gates tops the all-star line-up, doing his best John Travolta impersonation as he belts out the film's title track, Grease. And Darius gives him a run for his money with his rendition of Sandy. The Westlife boys are transformed into the T Birds to sing Greased Lightnin', while Girls Aloud swap their streetwise image for prim and proper prom dresses and croon Hopelessly Devoted To You. But, the performance we're dreading most has to be The Cheeky Girls with their 'interesting' version of We Go Together.
Coronation Street star Suranne Jones told new! how she jumped at the chance to play Sandy for the night and croon one of the show's most famous songs - Summer Nights - with You've Been Framed host and stage star, Jonathan Wilkes, 25, who plays "bad boy" Danny Zuko.
Suranne, who recently split from her fiance and is now dating ex Corrie star Jonathan Wrather says, "I love Grease, and I love the song. I was worried that it would fuel rumours of me quitting Corrie, but I just thought, 'Sod it.' I'm not leaving the show - I've just signed up to it for another year."
The 25 year old says she couldn't wait to get in front of the live studio audience when the programme was filmed last week. She gushed excitedly, "It was such good fun - the audience all dressed up in costume too, so it's a really good show, but the whole thing is a modern take on the original so there were no blonde wigs for me. Even though I'm chuffed to be playing Sandy, I'm much more of a Pink Lady!"
Although Suranne says she enjoyed singing with Jonathan Wilkes, when it comes to singing Grease she says you can't beat the real thing. "I love John Travolta. I met him not long ago and my legs just went wobbly. He's such a legend. I'd just love to sing with him".
You can catch this hour-long special on Saturday, October 18, at 9.30pm on ITV1
AS WELL AS OUR GREAT SCOT AND OUR FOUR UNSUNG HEROES, THE SUNDAY MAIL LAST NIGHT HONOURED A HOST OF OTHER SCOTS WE CAN ALL BE PROUD OF. HERE THEY ARE:
Lifetime achievement: Motorracing champ Sir Jackie Stewart has raised millions for charityTV award: Monarch's Dawn SteeleBusiness: Entrepreneur Tom HunterCharity: Pop idol Darius is involved with music therapy group Nordoff RobbinsMusic: Popsong ace John McLaughlinSport: WorldCup referee Hugh Dallas