Rocky Horror Show

It’s a tale as old as time. Two clean cut American kids meet, fall in love and are engaged to be married. Driving through a storm, their car breaks down and they seek help from a mansion that just happens to be occupied by alien transsexuals from the planet Transylvania.

I’m sorry, what?

A parody of the science fiction movies of its time, and a rock musical on both stage and screen, The Rocky Horror show is a worldwide phenomenon and quite possibly one of the strangest things I have ever seen.

Upon walking into the Sydney premiere last week I was greeted by an extraordinary amount of fishnet stockings, basques and platform high heels – and that was just the audience. My friend Livia and I queued for the obligatory slushie cocktails in the glowing plastic “glasses” and lamented the fact we were clearly wearing too many clothes. We took our seats, wrapped ourselves in our complimentary red feather boas and spent a good many minutes star spotting in the crowd.  Clearly Rocky Horror is the MUST SEE musical of the moment!

The show opened with the very talented Jayde Westaby as a 1950s usherette, introducing the show with my now favourite song “Science Fiction/Double Feature”. (After all, who wouldn’t love a song with lyrics like “Flash Gordon was there in silver underwear”?) and the curtain was pulled aside to reveal a fantastically bright, almost cartoon–like set.

I was looking forward to seeing Craig McLaughlin in the show that he originally played in 1992 and which earned him the Helpman Award for Best Actor in a Musical for the role in 2014. Clearly I wasn’t the only one. His appearance on stage as Frank N Furter was greeted with thunderous cheers and applause. He was clearly very comfortable in the part, not only in his high heels, but with sassy comebacks to comments from the audience. He was outrageous, hilarious, and as for those biceps… well, like Janet sang, “I’m a muscle fan”.

Stephen Mahy and Amy Lehpamer were fabulously cast as the naïve Brad and Janet, and I was delighted to see Jayde back on stage as Magenta. I want to see and hear more of Jayde. Kristian Lavercombe was fantastic as Riff Raff, while Bert Newton as the narrator was, well, Bert (as underwhelming to me as always, but still a crowd favourite). Yet it's clear this show is all about Craig in his role as Frank, and he is the star.

 The show is high energy and a lot of laughs. Unlike the original, which I have heard was shocking and made plenty of people uncomfortable; this “tamed down” version plays up the comedy. Craig hams it up as Frank, and the crowd adores him for it. I can’t imagine anyone playing a better Frank N Furter in this production.  

Liv and I leapt to our feet to perform the Time Warp, delighting in the confusion of some audience members who were very taken aback by the whole thing.  We sang along with the cast, reliving every school disco of our childhood. The songs are catchy, the atmosphere electric, and I had an absolute blast.

The Rocky Horror show is playing at the Lyric Theatre in Sydney until 7th June. Don't miss your chance to see it. To book your tickets click here. 

Note: Livia and I attended the premiere as guests of Gordon Frost Productions. My review is unbiased and all thoughts are my own.