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Rocky Horror Show

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Brad and Janet fans, strap on your stilettos, clip on your suspenders and get over to the Frankenstein place for a bit of pelvic thrusting. But you better hurry - the show's strutting out of town on 25 January.

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Editorial

12 September 2008-25 January2009
Tues 7pm
Wed-Sat 8pm
Sun 6pm
Matinees: Sat 4pm, Sun 2pm
Comedy Theatre, Melbourne

It takes a lot to shock an audience these days – although wobbling flab on makeover TV shows is quite disturbing. But we’re really quite OK with mild horror scenes and transvestites bubbling with sexual innuendo – ingredients that whipped a ‘70s audience into a frenzy when Rocky Horror hit the big screen.

If you weren’t old enough in the ‘70s to be dancing the Time Warp at parties, then the Rocky Horror phenomenon might be a bit of a mystery. Shock-value: gone. Weirdness: well, everyone has a pair of fishnets somewhere, don’t they?

Rocky Horror’s eccentric allure has survived for two reasons: the music is fantastic, and the show is a hoot. After all these years the soundtrack still stands up as some of the best music around, and the wicked, wicked ways of Frank’n’Furter are a not-so-guilty pleasure now.

Tim Curry’s big screen portrayal of Frank’n’Furter is etched in my Rocky Horror consciousness and as I watched the fabulous iOta stamp his stilettos and swing his hips in this stage version, I was struck by how closely he mirrored the wonderfully camp Curry. iOta’s intonation in particular was practically identical, but the similarity felt right and he played Frank with a delicious decadence that surpassed the film characterisation. He was so damned sexy, and wow, what a voice!

If music is at the transsexual heart of Rocky Horror, then the voices of the cast propelled the production into Transylvanian heaven. Kellie Rode (Janet) and Andrew Bevis (Brad) gave an honey-sweet rendition of the classic Damnit Janet – aided by a (not so sweet) outstanding ensemble cast. Freakish siblings Magenta (Tamsin Carroll) - since replaced by Anne Wood - and Riff Raff (Paul Capsis) prowled the stage with menace: Capsis, in particular, was magnificently morose as Frank's butler. Together with Sharon Millerchip’s (Columbia’s) show-stealing tap dancing, the pair brought the house down with the pelvic-thrusting Time Warp - twice!

Director Gale Edwards has side-stepped more classical productions like the Royal Shakespeare Company’s The Taming of the Shrew to add her own wicked twist to this kitsch sci-fi musical. The cartoon-like set is pared-back and macabre – a perfect backdrop for the seductive B-grade movie. Needless to say, there is a flurry of ripped fishnets – stalking the stalls as well as the stage.

Songs like the gorgeously provocative I'm Just a Sweet Transvestite and the hauntingly beautiful Over at the Frankenstein Place once again have a place on Melbourne's stage proving we never tire of re-vamps of the vamps in fishnets. So get yourself up to the lab for a raunchy ride with Rocky. It’s wicked, it’s wild - it’s astounding!

Judith Hatton, Arts & Events Editor, Citysearch (18 September performance)

For more information go to the Rocky Horror Show official site. Bookings at Ticketek.

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27 User reviews (add yours)

User Feedback

stephy
September 17, 2008

its a bit rich to go and see it the price should be a little bit cheaper and theyd get more people going to see it i love the movie and im only 15 and i am dying to see the stage show and i cant afford that much it would take me around 2-3 weeks to save up the money