Sheffield Lyceum – until 30 November 2024
Reviewed by Adam Craddock
3***
This Tuesday it was time to jump to the left, a step to the right and do the time warp again as I took in this weeks offering from Sheffield Theatres, The UK tour of Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show. Starring Jason Donovan as Dr Frank N Furter this promised to be a night of raucous fun and over the top comedic drama and boy did it deliver.
The show follows Brad and Janet on their accidental adventure of finding their real selves at the mysterious “Frankenstein Place” and all the strange characters they run into while there. But let’s face it, it’s the Rocky Horror Show… we knew all that already! Let’s get into this cast’s take on it…
Connor Carson and Lauren Chia play Brad and Janet respectively, both bringing strong performances with Carson in particular giving us a vocally stunning performance. Chia was solid as Janet and had that all American girl next door vibe that is an absolute pre-requisite for playing the character. Job Greuter was fair as Riff Raff, with a delicious rock vocal but performance wise nothing out of what you would necessarily expect from the character we all know and perhaps lacking its own spin. Similar could be said for Natasha Hoeberigs as Magenta, with once again nothing necessarily wrong but the lack of a personal touch on a character we have seen done before many a time. Morgan Jackson was great as Rocky, with a great on stage rapport with his other actors and his athletics paying fruits with his tumbling skills. Jayme-Lee Zanoncelli was brilliant as Columbia with just the right balance of quirkiness needed for the part and some mighty impressive tap ability.
And then we have the TWO absolute stars of the show for me, Jason Donovan as Dr Frank N Furter and Nathan Caton as The Narrator. Donovan played Frank in a very interesting way, less as the polyamorous sex bomb that you sometimes see and more as a haggard old cow that has been there, done it and got the T shirt. Donovan excelled in the dialogue sections and his vocal was mighty impressive but I did feel that at times that there was a disconnect between his vocal and his acting through song when he had to just stand and sing rather than play off others. And the less said about his dancing the better, with him visibly forgetting what he was doing with the choreography at times (who can muck up the Time Warp!) and him obviously looking round at his fellow cast members for prompts at times. All in all though, despite these flaws I did very much enjoy his take, with these imperfections almost playing into his take on the character as being a bit done with it all. Caton meanwhile was pure perfection as The Narrator, with the ability to deal with the audiences heckles in such an intelligent way that only someone with his stand up comedy background could deliver. He had a beautiful richness to his voice but could switch it up to the London road man for a bit of comedy effect when needed. Of all the over the top characters and star names in this show, the one that myself and my partner came away talking about was Caton! Bravo!
All in all I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening at The Rocky Horror Show, with a solid night of theatre if overall nothing remarkable. I would say to definitely pick this up at Sheffield Theatres if you want a show where you know you are going to get exactly what it says on the tin.