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The Rocky Horror Show

The Playhouse, Edinburgh

Four stars

 

It is more than fifty years now since a kinky corset fashioned for a Glasgow Citizens Theatre production of Jean Genet’s The Maids was taken to London by Tim Curry to help launch a bona fide counter-cultural crossover classic. Half a century on, Richard O’Brien’s glamtastic piece of cult fiction remains the theatrical monster that refuses to lie down and die. This latest tour of director Christopher Luscombe’s long running revival of O’Brien’s gender bending opus stays true both to the show’s sub Warholian  trash aesthetic and its fringe theatre roots, even as it has become a vehicle for real life stars.

 

Cue Jason Donovan, who dons stockings, suspenders and what probably isn’t costume designer Sue Blane’s original corset as Frank-N-Furter, the cross dressing mad scientist who tempts lost innocents Brad and Janet into his spooky lair that all the freaks call home. Donovan makes his entrance following the hip hugging ensemble routine accompanying the show’s breakout floor filler, The Time Warp, to a hero's welcome. Despite this, while clearly having fun, he plays things as straight as his character allows.

 

Connor Carson and Lauren Chia make a suitably geeky Brad and Janet, whose exposure to Frank-N-Furter’s intergalactic shenanigans leads to their own belated sexual liberation, with Edward Bullingham’s himbo Rocky showing the way. Natasha Hoeberigs as Magenta and Jayme-Lee Zanoncelli’s Columbia keep the party going, while Job Greuter leads from behind as Riff Raff.

 

The regular Rocky Horror audience are of course well known for plundering the dressing up box themselves as well as breaking the fourth wall with a series of well practiced exchanges. These are either more respectful and less boisterous than they used to be, or else there are a fair few Rocky Horror virgins in the house. Either way, the heckles are something Nathan Caton as the Narrator bounces off with some very up to the minute references regarding real world absurdities.

 

O’Brien’s Frankenstein-like mash-up of sci-fi B-movie pastiche, first generation rock and roll homage and a post swinging sixties libertine spirit was clearly in tune with the times from whence it was spawned. Even with the umpteen layers of retro cool baggage the show has acquired across decades, however, it now looks like it was quite possibly ahead of those times. In its campy celebration of oddball otherness, Rocky Horror shows no sign of letting up any time soon. It lives again, immortality guaranteed. The time warp goes on.


The Herald, January 21st 2024

 

ends

 

 

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