Writer: Richard O’Brien
Director: Christopher Luscombe
First appearing at the 63-seat Theatre Upstairs at The Royal Court in 1973, Richard O’Brien’s schlock horror musical has become a worldwide cultural phenomenon. Centred around a cross-dressing, bisexual alien with a taste for excess it was quick to find a cult audience, but the irresistible energy and catchiness of its score and the artful spoofing of 1950s horror movies has given it a considerably wider appeal. Every Rocky Horror audience contains a fair sprinkling of fanatical followers, dressed in variations on basques and stockings or sequinned finery, sporting feather boas or rubber gloves. There are also, however, many normally dressed, musical theatre fans who enjoy a ribald, outrageous, fundamentally good-natured evening of tuneful escapism.
The audience cannot be ignored in any review of this show. The fourth wall is shattered from the first moments when Natasha Hoeberigs’ perky usherette appears in an impossibly short, pink uniform to remind us of the science fiction double features that filled cinemas in the 1950s. Audience members can be heard to be quietly singing along as she nicely sets the tone for what follows. Once the excessively clean-cut Brad and Janet make their appearance, the time-honoured interjections from the audience begin, all taken in their stride by the actors.
Once Nathan Caton’s narrator appears, almost a full-on dialogue begins with the audience. His carefully-timed pauses allow audience members to provide alternative, and filthy, endings to his sentences, allowing him to respond in kind, which he does with great panache and obvious enjoyment.
Owing to a flat tire, Brad and Janet find themselves at an eerie, gothic castle where Job Greuter’s delightfully sinister Riff-Raff brings them into the presence of Frank N Furter, whose tight basque and loose morals draw them into a string of events whereby they lose first their clothes, then their innocence.
Following unsuccessful experiments with the unfortunate Eddie, a great rock’n’roll performance by Edward Bullingham, Frank has succeeded in creating his own ideal man, a Charles Atlas clone, played with disarming innocence by Morgan Jackson. A series of hilarious and sometimes graphic liaisons take place until events spiral out of control, leading to a mound of bodies reminiscent of the end of Hamlet.
At the centre of this is Jason Donovan’s louche and engagingly debauched Frank. In a slightly world-weary characterisation that falls halfway between Julian Clary and Craig Revel-Horwood, he seems to be enjoying himself enormously. Flirting knowingly with the audience, strutting in his heels and thrusting his pelvis unashamedly, he is light years away from his Aussie soap persona. As well as catching every comic opportunity, he also fills the vocal demands of the role very well.
Connor Carson’s Brad is nicely judged and features outstanding vocals, while Lauren Chia matches him as Janet. Hoeberigs doubles as Magenta in a high-energy performance that shows her versatility and Jayme-Lee Zanoncelli is a sassy but vulnerable Columbia, dancing and singing with equal skill. Greuter’s Riff-Raff is a shadowy delight, scuttling like a wounded insect about the stage but giving the legendary Time Warp number everything an audience could hope for.
There are no weak links in this polished cast, and they deliver every number expertly, accompanied by a first-rate band, under the direction of Josh Sood. They also make the most of Nathan M Wright’s clever choreography.
This is not an evening for the easily offended or for those looking for subtlety or thoughtful, clever plotlines. Nonetheless, it is entirely unpretentious and unapologetic in doing what it sets out to do, which is to entertain and amuse. This good-looking show does that in high style, and it is, no doubt, perverse of this reviewer to slightly miss the lower production values of earlier touring versions that had a charming tackiness, somehow in line with the show’s ethos and origins.
Runs until 1 February 2025