Jason Donovan prepares to rock the Liverpool Playhouse this christmas
“I can’t wait to get back to Liverpool,” Jason Donovan says. “I always enjoy soaking up all that fantastic endless musical heritage and look forward to my walks around this great UK city.
“The audiences on this Rocky tour have been such a great part of the show and I’m excited to interact with the Liverpool theatregoers - I know they’ll be up for it!”
And if anyone should know, it’s Donovan, because he’s had plenty of experience of Liverpool audiences over the years, from the mass hysteria generated when a then young, mullet-haired Neighbours’ heartthrob appeared at Bootle’s Quadrant Park club all the way back in 1989 to rocking the Empire as an outrageous Elvis hip-swivelling, gold loincloth-wearing Pharaoh in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat two years ago.
Other appearances over the last three decades include as the Artilleryman in Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds at the arena, and Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun at the Empire.
Then there is also a pair of visits in Priscilla Queen of the Desert, in which he played the outrageous Drag Queen Tick (of ‘a cock, in a frock, on a rock’ fame).
Now he’s on his way back clad in basque and suspenders, this time as Dr Frank-N-Furter in the Rocky Horror Show, the Playhouse’s perhaps somewhat unexpected Christmas offering for 2024 – and albeit for a strictly limited number of appearances.
The Aussie star will play the vampy Transylvanian Frank for the first few performances in December before handing over the Rocky reins to fellow actor Stephen Webb.
It’s been a while since Donovan appeared in Richard O’Brien’s cult classic tribute to the B-movies of his childhood. In fact, his baptism into the Rocky Horror family came in the late 90s (in a production where he met his future wife Angela, then the show’s stage manager, with whom he has three children aged 24 to 13).
But discovering there was a 50th anniversary production in the offing, the 56-year-old approached producer Howard Panter to say he’d love to be involved.
“I’m a fan. I love the show, I love the music, I love the character,” he explains. “I was touring my own show about five years ago and included Sweet Transvestite from Rocky as a key moment in my musical career. It went down a storm.”
He started the tour in his native Australia and then hit British shores with O’Brien’s story of a clean-cut pair of college kids, Brad and Janet, who seek sanctuary after their car breaks down in a storm in the middle of nowhere – only to find themselves drawn into a very strange world indeed.
Above and top: Jason Donovan as Frank in The Rocky Horror Show. Photos by David Freeman
“I come to the role as an actor,” he says in an interview about the flamboyant Frank-N-Furter. “I always dreamed of fronting a rock band and this is about as close as I’ve got. When I put on those high heels, I become that rock ‘n’ roll star. It makes me feel powerful, tall, in charge.
“And audiences love it. As I look out from the stage, I see a beautiful landscape of people wearing outrageous costumes. It’s not hard to see why: in many ways, Rocky is panto for adults. The costumes are just as much a part of the show as the characters and the music.”
Panto for adults is a good way to describe it, and perhaps makes the Playhouse’s seasonal scheduling (somewhere between the Royal Court’s adult Christmas show and the Everyman’s Rock ‘n’ Roll panto) make perfect sense.
Donovan will be joined on the Williamson Square stage by Pete Price as the Narrator, while Leanne Campbell will then take on audience wrangling duties for the remainder of the run, appearing alongside Rocky veteran Webb.
But if you miss him in December, there’s another chance to catch Donovan in the New Year when he brings his Doin’ Fine 25 show (a long awaited sequel to his Doin’ Fine 90 tour) to the Philharmonic Hall; a ‘greatest hits’ taking fans through 35 years of work from Neighbours and Strictly through his Stock Aitken Waterman pop years to live shows like Joseph, Grease, Priscilla and, yes, of course a spot of Rocky Horror too.
The Rocky Horror Show is at the Liverpool Playhouse from December 3 to January 4. Jason Donovan appears from December 3-7. Tickets HERE
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