Danny Bayne in Grease
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Age: 19. He'll be 20 in October.
Currently: Playing Danny Zuko in the West End revival of Grease, the third London production (following The Sound of Music and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) to be cast via reality TV.
Hometown: Welling, Kent, not far from Tunbridge Wells, where he first saw a touring production of Grease. "I thought I'd love to be in that show,” he says, “and then the opportunity came."
He's the One that They Want: Bayne was cast as Danny opposite Susan McFadden's Sandy, voted in by followers of the ITV series, Grease Is the Word. "There were thousands of us in the first round, but then they cut it down so we could go into the Shaftesbury Theatre and do our auditions on stage." After that, Bayne recalls, "There were some 80 boys picked to go to boot camp, which was a humongous mansion in the middle of nowhere. In the end, they picked eight boys and eight girls for the actual reality TV part, who got voted off in couples." As the series neared an end, Bayne got to deliver various spectacular solos: Tom Jones's "It's Not Unusual" and George Michael's "I'm Your Man." He sums it up this way, "It was pretty crazy."
Danny Bayne in a scene from Grease
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The Gang's All There: Not as crazy, though, as the August 8 opening night, where the audience included a retinue of 18 there to cheer Danny on. The assemblage included his father, who is a mechanic, and his mum, a housewife. "It was pretty great, pretty awesome,” he gushes. “It was a once in a lifetime thing and absolutely awesome to have everyone there."
Now and Forever: But why should the goings-on in Rydell High School in the 1950s pack such a perennial punch in Britain, a country seemingly in ceaseless thrall to period Americana and the sounds of that time? "It's music that travels, doesn't it?" says Bayne, "music that changes the ages. If Elvis weren't around, then Grease would never have been in existence. The music travels—it never dates. It never grows old." In fact, Bayne almost did Grease as one of the end-of-year shows at his drama school, Italia Conti. "But we ended up doing Little Shop of Horrors instead, and I played Seymour. That's a great show, too."
Reality TV Factor: "I've always been a bit dubious of the whole reality TV thing," admits Bayne, who says he'd "never go" for the likes of
The X-Factor. "But I thought, I'll go for this, and in the end I got it." In fact, at the time Bayne had been offered a job in the world tour of the Boney M musical
Daddy Cool. "I'd got that as my leaving job from college, which I was pretty damned happy with. But Danny Zuko has always been one of my dream jobs, always has been, always will be, so I thought I'd go for it." As things turned out, "
Daddy Cool was a no-go."
Movin' Out: The boy can move, as evidenced by the abandon with which he throws himself into Arlene Phillips' choreography. During "Born To Hand Jive" at the top of the second act, he whips the audience into a frenzy, lifting finger-snapping athleticism to something approaching art. "That's a killer, I'm not going to lie,” he laughs. “When I go off, I almost collapse, but the energy from the crowd and everything else gets you through it." Accomplished in various styles of dance, from freestyle and Latin American to hip-hop, Bayne says he was eight years old when dance fever first bit. "I was always trying different things: tae kwon-do, swimming, football, rugby, everything. But dancing was my favourite, and I fell in love with it—disco, hip-hop, all that stuff. No one in my family is a dancer, but they've always been behind me. They've always put their heart and soul and every penny into what I do and have allowed me to do what I want."
Danny Bayne and Susan McFadden
in Grease
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All in the Timing: Bayne isn't just light on his feet, he has genuine comic timing, too. In one very funny scene, he makes out with himself in the absence of Sandy; at another point, he misapplies mouth spray, landing it in his eye. "That's all me and [director] David Gilmore. He kind of instructs me, because if you do it wrong, you can fall on deaf ears." He thanks the stage training he received for rounding his talent: "I went in as a dancer and people said I left as a triple threat. They've helped me get a foot in all doors." What about the influence of the film? "I've watched it 150 bloomin' thousand times, but I watched it once when I was actually cast in the show so I knew which direction I was going when it came to rehearsals. David doesn't want you to play it the same was way as in the film; he wants you to play it in your own, hopefully charming way."
Hopelessly Devoted: Bayne clearly adores the material, which is just as well since he is contracted for a year, during eight months of which his girlfriend, Nicci, will be off performing on a cruise ship; she leaves August 30. "That's a very long time during which she gets to see the world." Bayne laughs. "She also gets to come back with a lump sum, since that money isn't taxed." And what of those critics who don't necessarily share Bayne's devotion to the show? "We' d been forewarned that Grease never gets amazing reviews. But, you know, I'm having a lot of fun doing what I'm doing, so to the ones that were nice, I say, thank you very much, and as for the ones that weren't, fair enough. "