By Talia Carlisle

Every­one is talk­ing about 35mm, and it’s not a mea­sure­ment, but a move­ment it seems, from the sound of new fans I’ve talked to.

35mm is a musi­cal writ­ten by Ryan Scott Oliv­er on at Gryphon The­atre until Sat­ur­day, which incor­po­rates music, orig­i­nal chore­og­ra­phy and a live band led by musi­cal direc­tor Jess West­on.

Show direc­tor Emi­ly K Brown said this show inspired her to start her own suc­cess­ful musi­cal the­atre career back in her younger years, so to be direct­ing it in Welling­ton is a dream come true.

Watch­ing the show cer­tain­ly feels like a fever dream, with no smoke machine spared, nor musi­cal or dra­mat­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty left behind.

The show’s cen­tral per­form­ers do an incred­i­ble job to fill Gryphon The­atre as if it were an audi­to­ri­um, and I would love to see them all per­form in one, one day soon.

The sound by Jacob Can­nell and light­ing by Riley Gib­son is sta­di­um wor­thy and a true work of art, which impress­es me more than the eccen­tric images dis­played in the set — said to inspire the musi­cal num­bers through­out the 90 minute show.

The music is catchy, upbeat and pas­sion­ate­ly deliv­ered.

There are beau­ti­ful har­monies, duets, and engag­ing group num­bers per­formed by the spec­tac­u­lar core cast of Lau­ra Gard­ner, Kirsty Husz­ka, Tara Ter­ry, Mar­ley Richards and Alex Rabi­na. Being a fan of Welling­ton Foot­lights’ work already, I have high expec­ta­tions of the deliv­ery and the ener­gy and qual­i­ty nev­er wavers through­out the show.

Being a musi­cal, it is key to get the sound bal­ance right and the band deliv­ers a top notch per­for­mance wor­thy of its own show.

The musi­cians and actors seem to have the time of their lives, danc­ing non-stop and singing their hearts out, no mat­ter the dif­fer­ent sounds or styles, their pas­sion deliv­er­ing a per­fect pack­age.

Being a small venue for such a large band and show is always tricky, as the music can make some of the singing hard to hear. This isn’t just the instru­ments, but each singer has their own style, wor­thy of a rock show, and mem­o­rable rock­er Tara’s voice is qui­eter than the oth­ers’ but beau­ti­ful and worth hear­ing when it shines through.

It’s impos­si­ble to find any­thing to fault and I have heard only rave reviews for the show, so if you get a chance to see it, or Foot­lights’ future work, you’ll be glad you did.

I’m so grate­ful for their fear­less dri­ve to deliv­er qual­i­ty the­atre, when now more than ever we need to cel­e­brate cre­ativ­i­ty, pos­i­tiv­i­ty and com­ing togeth­er in a world and gov­ern­ment where arts need to be fought for.

Don’t be fooled by the catchy rock tunes, there are some seri­ous themes in the show and a lot of death in par­tic­u­lar men­tioned, despite the show feel­ing very much alive.

The most mov­ing is Leave, Luanne — a bal­lad about a women fight­ing the demons she faces being in an abu­sive rela­tion­ship, and no mat­ter how dark the con­tent, I can only see the beau­ti­ful dance solo per­formed and chore­o­graphed by Mar­garet Hill shin­ing through (with addi­tion­al choreg­ra­phy by direc­tor Emi­ly and chore­o­g­ra­ph­er Kat­ty Lau.)

The finale is a deli­cious prom scene with spe­cial per­form­ers arriv­ing in their gowns and STACEY O’BRIEN steal­ing the scene as they should as SARA BERRY. This includes cameos from direc­tor Emi­ly, Mar­garet, Ella Dowsett Farmer and Julia McDon­ald, mak­ing The Bal­lad of Sara Berry easy to fall in love with and impos­si­ble to for­get.

No cre­ativ­i­ty is spared, no cos­tume unwor­thy of rock and roll, and every sound, sparkle and smoke machine poised ready to wow.

Thank you again Foot­lights for show­cas­ing some fan­tas­tic tal­ent and beau­ti­ful, fun writ­ing that we have become accus­tomed to — or if you haven’t yet, don’t miss your chance.