Blackpool Winter Gardens – until Saturday 25 February 2023
Reviewed by Debra Skelton
5*****
Rock of Ages is a modern day musical theatre phenomenon; it ran for a record breaking 2328 performances on Broadway, has toured in more than 30 countries and spawned a 2012 movie.
It is now back in the UK and has arrived at Blackpool Winter Gardens to guarantee to rock you in, and out of your seats.
Packed full of iconic rock songs, this is the musical equivalent to time travelling for anyone who was around in the 80’s (or anyone younger who just loves great rock anthems). The story is a classic Boy Meets Girl, Falls in Love, Boy Loses Girl, Boy has an epiphany and wins her back. Running in the background is the threat of big business developing the Sunset Strip and demolishing the iconic bars and music venues. What sets this one aside from so many other pop musicals is its total abandonment of the expected norm – Rock of Ages may be serious about the music, but it certainly doesn’t take itself serious at all.
The cast clearly enjoyed the show as much as the audience, none more so than Sam Turrell (Drew) and Gabriella Williams (Sherrie), the story’s love struck leads who brilliantly toy with the perils of LA stardom and sleaze. Both find themselves at the Bourbon Room, a rock club on the Sunset Strip ran by Dennis Dupree (Corrie’s Kevin Kennedy); Drew bussing tables and writing music, Sherrie as a wide eyed innocent looking to become an actress and both of them end up betraying their dreams for a dose of LA reality.
Guiding the audience through the story is the narrator and Dupree’s assistant Lonny, played by the mercurial Tim Oxbrow who gives Lonny all the sexual tension of Russell Brand crossed with the over the top flamboyance of Tim Curry (from The Rocky Horror Picture Show).
There are also standout performances by Natalie Winsor as Justice (showing her prowess as a powerful soul singer) and Cameron Sharp as the aging rock god Stacee Jaxx.
The paylist should be filed under ‘definition of jukebox musical’; it feels like the writer, Chris D’Arienzo, wanted to make a mix tape of his favourite 80’s songs and then make up a story to tell by using them. Every tune sits as a chapter heading to progress the story; there is little subtlety in which tune fits where but that is fine, we’re not here for highbrow, deep thinking culture, we’re here for Rock and Roll.
Backed by a brilliant ensemble, some rather risqué costumes and a rocking live band, this is not so much a love letter to rock as it is a wild Friday night of abandonment and worry about the consequences later. So, if you like comedy, if you enjoy live music and if you love 80’s rock then this is the perfect way to spend an evening.