Great Scott! The Rocky Horror Show at The Edinburgh Playhouse!
Image by David Freeman
There was a period of my life in the late 90s / early naughties where The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show was a regular fixture. My party trick was being able to do the Time Warp in roller-skates (the proper one, not the Damian version), and there was a Columbia costume on permanent standby in my closet. I don’t presume to consider myself a top tier aficionado, Rocky Horror inspires the kind of fervour and devotion most commonly associated with Star Trek, or comic book, fans. However, as a former shadow cast WAG, I have seen the show in a myriad of permutations from large national theatres to grotty little ‘adult’ cinemas and, perhaps most memorably, even once in the middle of a somewhat bewildered Glasgow night club. It’s fair to say that I’m familiar with the source material, but also that I come into it with some baggage and expectations.
It was towards the end of my ‘Rocky years’ that I saw Jason Donovan pull on the sacred fishnets as Frank-N-Furter for the first time. An unexpected delight at the time, he blew me away. In a calculated career reinvention the casting embraced his much documented plummet from squeaky clean soap star to not so squeaky, and definitely not so clean, tabloid scandal machine with tongue firmly in cheek. It felt like, if not a reinvention, then at least a reinvigoration of the role itself. Dirty, raw and rock & roll, Donovan’s Frank felt wonderfully in the spirit of the original piece without being an impression of the impossible-to-replicate Tim Curry. It also opened the elevator door to a fun succession of good-boys-turned-bad like Jonathan Wilkes and fellow Ramsay Street resident Craig McLachlan having a crack of the whip. Now, almost three decades later, all the old bands are reforming. The movies are being rebooted. It makes sense that musical theatre would not be immune to the pull of a nostalgic revival too.
I went into to this show with middling expectations. Rocky is (almost) always a good time, but after a post-millennium shift towards over-sanitised Glee-ification, I had more or less begun to actively avoid it on stage (see also Grease). Despite this, I had enjoyed last year’s touring production and could feel a.. spark.. of life returning to the franchise. The idea of seeing Jason back in the role was irresistible, but the potential for (the wrong kind of) horror was high. The last time I saw him on stage was in 2019 as Tick in Pricilla Queen of the Desert, and though his performance was perfectly serviceable, there was nothing that suggested a stint in a role as exuberant and demanding as the megalomaniac Sweet Transvestite would be a smart move. I was nervous. However, within not much more than his first ‘how do you do?’ I knew it was going to be ok. More than ok in fact, maybe even great.
Donovan’s Frank of 2025 is not his Frank of 1998, how could it be? And nor should it be. Instead he gives us a Frank that is older, sloppier, kind of washed-up and somewhat tragic in his obsessively libidinous pursuits. It’s a brave choice, and it’s not going to be for everyone, but for me it was an interpretation that felt fresh and less of a wild take than it might seem on paper. Rocky Horror is at its best when it’s chaotic, camp and just on the right side of terrible. It’s decadent, but it’s punk. It has an anarchic, shoe-string heart that shines when it’s allowed to careen off piste. It shouldn’t be polished and slick, and everything that the terrible 2016 TV Movie got wrong – imperfection is its lifeblood. Which is not to say that the performance here wasn’t professional or competent. His vocals are surprisingly good, the script was adhered to and ensemble routines were tightly executed. Indeed, the slight of hand in hiding this amidst the apparent messiness is a skill in itself. However, for me, this Frank, who was only just clinging on by his false fingernails, gave the material an intentional and much needed injection of unpredictability, pathos and, let it not go unsaid, pure filth. The cynical, wearier sections of the dialogue (‘It’s not easy having a good time..’) and songs like I’m Going Home fit like a rubber glove.
In what seems like a deliberate flip-side to the casting of Donovan in the lead, Nathan Caton brings a younger, more contemporary edge to the Narrator, and to audience interactions, than is usual. I found him to be fearless, hilarious and also enjoyably filthy. The rest of the supporting cast deliver strong performances with Job Greuter’s Riff Raff a stand-out for his powerful voice and adept comedic flair. Connor Carson and Lauren Chia, as Brad and Janet respectively, work well together and are a good fit for the roles. I have long held that Brad Majors is the unsung gem at the centre of the show, and Carson does a splendid job of balancing the gee-shucks cheese with some real human heart.
Musically, the production remains faithful to Richard O’Brien’s original compositions, with the band under musical director Josh Sood, delivering energetic renditions of the iconic score. I must also give a nod to the lighting design which was well utilised, and particularly dazzling during Don’t Dream It, Be It. The sets by Hugh Durrant effectively transition between locations, though there are moments where the visual elements could be more cohesive, such as jumping from the low-fi cartoonishness of Brad and Janet’s car to the more realistic and luxurious interior of the castle.
I’ve often wondered how on earth anyone makes sense of The Rocky Horror Show on stage without previous exposure to the material. Not least because the plot is completely bonkers (somehow I’m still always slightly surprised when Riff Raff and Magenta go full space alien at the end), but also because it happens at a break-neck pace and with half the dialogue being drowned out by the audience yelling at the stage. It’s generally a more sedate affair these days than it was when there was rice, toast and cake flying through the air too, but it’s still never quite your usual, gentle evening at the theatre. To that end, and given that the baseline is a virtually unintelligible-to-the-uninitiated tangle of madness, why even try to fight it? This current production is not perfect, and it’s lead performance is likely to be marmite-ish, but it is interesting, entertaining and slightly unhinged, which is all I can ask for really.
All words by Susan Sloan.