The Rocky Horror Present made its stage debut upstairs at London’s Royal Courtroom Theatre in 1973, however right here in Australia, there’s a way of nationwide pleasure in its cussed, decades-long success: we declare it as our personal.
It’s a good shout: Jim Sharman, who ushered in a brand new period of musicals along with his influential Australian productions of Hair and Jesus Christ Celebrity within the 70s, directed its first outing. He additionally later directed the 1975 movie adaptation, which he additionally co-wrote with O’Brien, in addition to its sequel, Shock Therapy.
The stage and display productions had been designed by Sharman’s frequent collaborator, the Tony and Helpmann-award-winning – and Kylie Minogue tour-designing – Brian Thomson. After which, in fact, there’s Australian Nell Campell, AKA Little Nell, who originated the function of Columbia on each stage and display, faucet dancing her manner into the nation’s coronary heart.
However 50 years is a very long time to be a insurgent, and our outdated woman, which lovingly spoofs B-movies to inform the story of a conservative couple crashing a horny, Frankenstein-y get together (hosted by aliens – look, you’re there for the vibe, not for narrative integrity) has some creaky bones. We’re thus far now from midnight musical showtimes, as soon as stacked with energetic, raunchy audiences of repeat attenders: this fiftieth anniversary tour, directed by Christopher Luscombe, kicked off its opening evening in Sydney at a downright smart 7pm.
The creakiness is difficult to keep away from: it partly comes all the way down to the pure passage of time. Its ribald, provocative language hasn’t modified with the tradition round it and has turn out to be outdated. The present’s most passionate fanbase has aged alongside the present, and with such an ardent crowd of built-in followers, there’s much less inventive starvation to alter the formulation and attempt to discover real subversion within the sexual liberation of the fishnets-and-garters selection – not to mention any urge for food to look too carefully at our rising and more and more nuanced understanding of gender fluidity and efficiency.
This manufacturing can be carrying some new psychic scars. That is the primary time Rocky Horror has toured nationally since 2014, a manufacturing which resulted in a collection of allegations of sexual assault and misconduct in opposition to Craig McLachlan, who denied the claims and was acquitted of indecent assault expenses in 2020.
Given all of this, can we nonetheless have enjoyable?
Principally, sure. Extra lived-in, naturally, than the revival’s first Sydney season in February 2023, there’s a joyful ease and a splash of playfulness that retains the forged energised – and had its opening evening viewers erupt in a collection of swept-up cheers after each quantity.
The present’s narrator is a essential a part of setting the tone: they encourage the viewers to scream and clap, and should volley with the viewers participation, which began at cult movie screenings and crossed over to the stage. When a narrator can rev up the vitality, it will probably jolt the present with new life.
This manufacturing has already performed host to a string of narrators, together with Spicks and Specks’ Myf Warhurst, The Sound of Music’s Nicholas Hammond and comic Joel Creasey; fellow comedian Pete Helliar will tackle the function from 18 April. Proper now, nevertheless, Dylan Alcott is within the function, and the Golden Slam tennis star is a welcome shock.
Many stunt-cast athletes are a gritted-teeth bumbling spectacle, however Alcott has a witty and likable stage presence and might lob again heckles with straightforward one-liners – and will get just a few good further jokes in too. We’re in good arms.
As Brad and Janet, Blake Bowden and Deidre Khoo are a well-matched pair: each actors have a wink-and-nudge strategy to their most earnest scenes that makes their later adventures really feel like an inevitability. Darcy Eagle provides a manic-edged vulnerability to Columbia that, even on this briskly paced manufacturing (this musical doesn’t enable for a millisecond of lifeless air), feels earned.
Henry Rollo nearly walks away with the present as Riff-Raff – placing the rock again right into a musical that may’t cease singing about rock’n’roll. Richard Hartley’s unique musical preparations sound bombastic right here and, coupled with Nick Richings’ lighting design, retains the get together going.
After which there’s Jason Donovan. With somewhat sweetness and quite a lot of flirtation, the one-time Neighbours heart-throb tackles Frank-N-Furter with a efficiency that performs simply sufficient homage to Tim Curry’s now-iconic movie efficiency to hit the acquainted beats the viewers appeared to crave, however provides sufficient of himself to maintain issues recent.
Seeing this manufacturing once more, it’s exhausting to not to consider what may be in new inventive arms – what new depth, commentary or provocation we may discover within the present if we may interrogate it from new queer and trans views, with an strategy that challenged the conservative sexual mores and ethical panics we’re going through in 2024, particularly with transphobia on the rise in Australia and overseas.
However this manufacturing, like Frank, is simply right here to deliver one thing again to life, constructed to specs, made for pleasure and companionship. Viewing this manufacturing by the lens of what it’s, and never what we would want it may very well be, one of the best factor about it’s the sense that Frank and his otherworldly companions are in cahoots with us. Once they break the fourth wall to blow kisses or make faces at us, it’s a reminder that we’re awake and alive, too; it lets us really feel like we’re additionally somewhat bit horny, enjoyable and thrilling. That’s not unhealthy for 7pm on a Wednesday.
