The glorious abandon that is The Rocky Horror Show
The Rocky Horror Show
at New Theatre Oxford
from Monday, April 21, to Saturday, April 26
Review by JON LEWIS
IF there were an award for a show where the audience has most fun joining in the songs and dialogue, then Richard O’Brien’s 1973 musical The Rocky Horror Show probably wins the gong.
The most dedicated of the fans dressed up in a bright array of home-made costumes, the foyer bustling with high heels, posh frocks and fishnets, usherettes selling popcorn and alien lanky-long haired servants.
On press night, two well-rehearsed groups of women shouted out responses to performers’ lines, too rude to mention here, some slanderous, all hilarious. The actors, expecting this level of fandom, gave everyone sufficient seconds between lines to allow for these interactions across the fourth wall.
Christopher Luscombe’s production for Trafalgar Theatre productions has been on the road for nearly two decades. O’Brien’s affectionate homage to American 1930s-1950s sci-fi fiction movies and rock and roll tunes underpins the production.
The gender-fluid characters, cross-gender seductions and general prodding of illiberal sensibilities remains a potent, enjoyable provocation that must have been a bigger deal in the years after theatre censorship was abolished.
The narrative revolves around the unexpected presence of two young lovers, Brad (Connor Carson) and Janet (Lauren Chia), in a house straight out of Grant Wood’s 1930 painting American Gothic.
It’s newly inhabited by aliens from Transexual, Transylvania, led by the charismatic Frank n Furter (Adam Strong).
Like Mary Shelley’s Dr Frankenstein, Frank has created new life, with his latest experiment the strongman and tumbler Rocky (Morgan Jackson), a man intended to be his new lover. With Brad and Janet fresh meat, Frank’s insatiable desires for any kind of sex motor the plot. Jackie Clune gets most of the laughs as The Narrator, her innuendos never failing to hit home.
The entire theatre gets on its feet for the songs that have become chart hits, notably Time Warp, everyone coordinating with the steps and movements. Other popular numbers – Science Fiction / Double Feature, Dammit Janet, Over at the Frankenstein Place and especially Sweet Transvestite, are occasions for a singalong, with this audience involvement crucial to the production’s contagious sense of joyous abandon.
A good night out.
