Stockton Globe Theatre, Stockton – until 29th April 2023
5*****
Recently, theatre was in the news due to audience etiquette and people singing along. Well, if you read any of those articles just know that they do not apply to The Rocky Horror Show, which wouldn’t be the same without the audience heckles and the singing along.
The opening number, Science Fiction/Double Feature is sung by Suzie McAdam, in her role as the Usherette, who had the audience cheering before she even started singing. McAdam also deserves a mention for how quickly she managed to get changed at the end of the show from the Usherette outfit back into the Magenta outfit. Jackie Clune is brilliant in her role as the narrator as she receives the most heckles from the audience but responds to them brilliantly, whether or not these replies are scripted remains unknown but the timings and the responses are spot on, Clune is possibly one of the best narrators I have seen, and at this point I am into double figures for the amount of times I have seen the show.
Sweet and innocent Brad and Janet are played by Ore Oduba and Haley Flaherty who have amazing on stage chemistry. The pair also take the heckles well, although at times you could tell Oduba was trying not to laugh, especially during the scene with the cocktail shaker. Joe Allen brings both Eddie and Dr. Scott to life but is better in the role as Eddie as it is much more lively. Ben Westhead is wonderful in his role of Rocky, parading around the stage in his little gold pants. Darcy Finden tap dances her way into the role of Columbia, although the role should be bigger as her talents are not used as well as they should be. Stars of the show though are Stephen Webb and Kristian Lavercombe who play Frank N. Furter and Riff Raff respectively. The pair have a brilliant connection and use each other to work out how to play the scene, and Lavercombe has racked up over 2000 performances as Riff Raff.
All in all a brilliant night out which would make Richard O’Brien proud and will make fans of the Rocky Horror Show keep coming back to do the Time Warp again and again.