As it opens in Cardiff for its new run, The Rocky Horror Show is fifty-three years old. Its perhaps more culturally iconic film adaptation, with Tim Curry in the lead role, is fifty-one. This is important information. It has inevitable repercussions on multiple levels, on how we stage the musical today, how we perceive it, and how we read it. It has fully conferred cult status onto it, as proved by the fact that it has a devoted audience, which showed up in droves to its Cardiff opening night in spite of the pouring rain, armed with costumes, canon-approved heckling, and a variety of props. There is also a degree of self-awareness on the stage, where some of the details which have aged not quite as well are expunged and the Narrator (a scintillating Jackie Clune, who doesn’t miss a beat in spite of heavy banter from the audience) at one point explicitly tells Rocky ‘you are a product of a different time’ – just in case we needed a reminder. You can hardly bring Rocky Horror up in conversation without someone rebutting, not wrongly so, that it is ‘problematic’. It has been argued that we should leave it behind as a thing of its age, or perhaps – shock horror – cancel it. We have better representation now. We no longer need Frank-N-Furter and his gang of freaks.
Or do we? Here is the thing: the reason Rocky Horror is still kicking (in fishnets and stilettos, of course) is that it still speaks to an audience that goes well beyond the nostalgia brigade. Look no further than the seats of the New Theatre for proof of that. A multigenerational audience, from the old aficionados to young teenagers who may well have been seeing the musical for the first time, not only laughed at the raunchy jokes and boogied to the mayhem of it all, but sat transfixed – and wiped more than one tear – as Frank (Stephen Webb) sang ‘Dont’t dream it, be it’, and dropped from laughter into somber silence at the tragic ending – because for all that it is a farce, Rocky Horror is also a tragedy. In its telling a story of self-discovery, pronouncing an authorisation to be your own freaky self, and ending on the reminder that the price to pay for that self-expression can be, may very well be, extremely high, Rocky Horror is not at all a product of its time: it is painfully relevant. One might argue, in our times of rampant transphobia, it is more relevant than ever.
The uncomfortable moments, of course, are there. There are scenes where the laughter from the audience was inevitably rather nervous. The new staging does its best to grant Brad and Janet (James Bisp and Haley Flaherty, both steadily in character throughout) a modicum more consent than they had in the original, but there is only so much that can be done. Perhaps the contemporary lens through which we should approach this is that Rocky Horror is meant to feel uncomfortable. It is not a palatable representation of acceptable queerness. All of its characters are mean, selfish, and manipulative in their own ways. Its stated philosophy, as phrased in its closing lines, is rather grim. It is, after all, a horror show: a portrayal of queerness as seen through the distorting lens of moral panic. This is not what queer people are like, but it very much is how they have been perceived: threatening, corrupting, alien. Yet the text of the show never forgets to bring us back to their humanity, and the new staging correctly leans on that. Frankenstein, which Rocky Horror spoofs, was after all a dissection of what it is to be human. So too, perhaps, Frank-N-Furter.
All philosophy aside, the musical is riotous fun. The whole cast embraces the madness with gusto and the result is infectious, in spite of the fact that the sound design could have been better (the music being in places too loud, to the point of drowning out the performers). Ryan Carter-Wilson as Riff Raff has the biggest pair of shoes to fill, and acquits himself well in the task. Laura Bird as Magenta and particularly Daisy Steere as Columbia deliver solidly over-the-top performances. Edward Bullingham as Eddie brings an injection of rock’n’roll adrenaline to what is probably one of the best tracks of the show. Stephen Webb is a delightful take on Frank, fully embracing the physicality the role requires.
Its complexity and its enjoyability, as well showcased by the Cardiff production, are most likely the reason why we return again and again to this musical, controversial as it may be. Its ability to titillate and amuse, but also to hold a mirror to its audience, is what brings patrons old and new, night after night, to do the Time Warp again.
https://trafalgartickets.com/new-theatre-cardiff/en-GB/event/musical/the-rocky-horror-show-tickets
Until June 6