Review: Rocky Horror Show at the Liverpool Playhouse ****1/2

Half-a-century after the Rocky Horror Show, Richard O’Brien’s love letter to his 50s cinema youth, first hit the stage it remains an indomitable theatrical force.

And this latest touring production, touching down at the Liverpool Playhouse for Christmas, maintains the show’s raucous, riotous reputation with slick, shlocky aplomb.

While Rocky Horror may, on the surface, seem an odd choice as a seasonal offering, it does have a distinctly pantoesque quality to it – albeit definitely one for adults only.

There's the larger-than-life colourful characters, a ‘dame’ (if you can call Frank N Furter that), and then the audience participation throughout. There was even a moment of corpsing on press night. If anything is as 'camp as Christmas', surely it’s this crazy cult classic?

Of course, beneath the surface there’s also a touch of pathos, a measure of melancholy and, in the narrator’s final speech, something somehow real and true and elemental.

Call me sentimental, but I always find the lines ‘and crawling on the planet’s face, some insects called the human race. Lost in time and lost in space - and meaning’ to be deeply affecting.

Anyway, that’s quite enough of that!

Cast may come and cast may go, but some things remain reassuringly the same in Rocky Horror world. One is director Christopher Luscombe who has been guiding the show successfully for the best part of two decades. Another is Sue Blane who created the costumes for the original production in 1973 (and subsequently the film version).

Above and top: Jason Donovan as Frank N Furter in the Rocky Horror Show. Photos by David Freeman.

Meanwhile Hugh Durrant’s set, framed by a curl of celluloid, was given its first outing five years ago when it sat on the all-together larger Empire stage. Here it fits snugly on the Playhouse’s more compact pros arch footprint like a wall-to-wall fitted carpet.

Another returnee is Jason Donovan, until this Saturday at least, as the libidinous transvestite scientist Frank, a role he first played in the 25th anniversary production way back in the 1990s.

Donovan was last on stage in Liverpool two years ago as the Pharaoh in Joseph. Then he arrived clad in a gold loincloth which seems relatively modest compared to Frank’s stockings, suspenders and barely-there basque. With all the flesh on show among the cast it’s a good thing the theatre’s heating has been cranked up to 11.

Looking rather like Rupert Everett giving his Norma Desmond, Donovan prowls the space in a cloud of honeyed menace, imperious pronouncements, dismissive gestures, predatory lunges and wistful yearning.

He may be the big name (and next week Stephen Webb, renowned as a great Frank too, takes over) but actually there’s not a weak link in the entire cast.

Above: Jayme-Lee Zanoncelli as Columbia with Job Greuter (Riff Raff), Natasha Hoeberigs (Magenta) and the phantoms. Photo by David Freeman.

Connor Carson and Lauren Chia are great as the wide-eyed, preppy lovebirds who unwittingly stumble on the Frankenstein Place during a rainstorm, while Job Greuter makes for a particularly sinister Riff Raff and Morgan Jackson is a suitably buff and gymnastic Rocky.

Meanwhile Pete Price evidently relishes his role as this week’s Narrator (Leanne Campbell takes over the run after the weekend), bringing his many years' experience on stage at the (now gone) Shakespeare Theatre to his retorts to the traditional - and occasionally not so traditional - heckles from the auditorium.

As I've already mentioned, we’re more used to seeing Rocky Horror here in the cavernous space of the Empire.

While it’s hardly the 60-seater room at London’s Royal Court where it all began, the comparatively modest size of the Playhouse, and the proximity of cast to audience, makes for a much more intense and visceral viewing experience – particularly as the cracking soundtrack is pumped out at what seem to be similar levels.

But as an audience member you may also feel a little bit more visible and, perhaps, ever so slightly more inhibited and polite as a result.

Saying that, this Rocky Horror Show looks great, it sounds fantastic and whether you’re a Janet or a Magenta, a Frank or a Brad, the whole show remains about as much fun as you can have with (most) of your clothes on.