By
John Jeffay
1 min read
Two hunks in tight gold trunks are wobbling on their stilettos.
Welcome to Rocky Horror, the show in which anything and everything goes, and where anyone (male or female) wearing much more than a basque and fishnets will feel distinctly over-dressed. A word for the uninitiated: Rocky Horror is rude. If stimulation, simulation, bare flesh and blurred sexual boundaries are not your thing, do not venture inside. Do not even venture outside. The hunks I mentioned were not part of the cast, they were in the lift at the multi-storey car park across the road from the theatre.
Rocky Horror is much more than a show. It is a party and a wild one at that, where the audience regularly and ritualistically shout out bits from their "parallel script" - and contribute frequent impromptu obscenities.
This production, directed by Christopher Luscombe (who did the touring production of Spamalot) is as timelessly wonderful and as outrageously awful as you would expect it to be.
No prizes for the music. You cannot go wrong with classics like Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me; I Can Make You a Man; Dammit Janet and The Time Warp. But they were not much improved simply by being played very loud. Let's be kind and say they had raw appeal.
The biggest treat for me was the frightfully jolly Christopher Biggins who stole the show as the narrator.
He had the audience onside from the start, he waited patiently for their contributions, he chuckled, he offered some marvellous, if unprintable put-downs, and he felt like part of the party.
I would like to say the same for the rest of the cast, but it felt as if they were there to perform rather than party.
David Bedella, as the "hero" Frank 'N' Furter, had an unscripted expletive for the audience when he fluffed his line, and also had the gravelliest of voices.
But in a show in which inhibitions barely exist, it did seem that those on stage were reluctant to let their hair down and really engage with a lively Liverpool audience.
I have got this far without a word about the plot, though it is of little consequence really. It is a parody of sci-fi B movies with deliberately dreadful special effects. Dr Furter is the self-styled sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania.
A man of insatiable and indiscriminate tastes, he shocks high school sweethearts Brad (Richard Meek) and Janet (Haley Flaherty) as he reveals to them his world of depravity.
He brings to life his Frankenstein-type toyboy for his eternal pleasure, deceives and seduces both of them (somewhat graphically in this production) and er, that's about it. Good clean fun.