Review by Simon Jenner, April 14th 2025
One eternal draw of the Rocky Horror Show is just what topical jokes the Narrator pulls out, just how badly ad-libs from the audience can match them. Jackie Clune’s ad-libs swiftly dispense with Trump/Musk to fire back at a lively audience’s innuendos: Clune can always aim lower. Then there’s glorious singing, a little of it this time masked by sound issues. Two great reasons to return, or adventure for your first two-hour awakening on Planet Transexual. Directed by Christopher Luscombe it lands at Theatre Royal Brighton till April 19th.
Lauren Chia and Connor Carson. Photo Credit: David Freeman
With a fresh cast (only one returnee as Swing), it’s a break from the 2021/23 productions, which culminated with the finest most lucid Rocky for years. Time for Rocky: The Next Generation.
When you see so much exposed flesh in April you’d guess where you are. But where we’ve come from? That actor who said he was leaving Superstar to write a play (“yeah yeah”) and got it put on at the Royal Court Upstairs in 1973, then as now renowned for breaking blood vessels in old critics’ cheeks. So Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show launched close to Terry Johnson’s “typical Court play where a zoo gets eaten” as Johnson put it, before being rescued by the unclassifiable anarch Ken Campbell, who you feel might just have written this if O’Brien hadn’t.
Though again directed by Christopher Luscombe the tour’s helmed by resident director Annabelle Hollingdale, with associate choreographer and resident director (maternity cover) Stefana Du Toit – a memorable Rocky Swing from 2021/23. So you’re going to get a clean pair of heels on some really dirty awakenings, and it helps too that mordantly funny actor/director Clune is a Narrator who delights in shocking the shockers. Whatever the time-warped refrains Clune has minted ones ready: she’s verbally, anatomically fearless.
Connor Carson proves an ideally appealing Brad, preppy and vulnerable, awoken and scared. His last solo is ardent, in period and vocally crystalline. Lauren Chia’s again a superb Janet, with that high voice between Soubrette and Proms Queen beautifully managed. She manages the awakening too especially when she gets hot for Rocky. But we’re um coming to that.
Adam Strong as Frank N Furter, that seducer with a rocket-shaped secret, comes in on a red-edged black outfit. Costume Designer Sue Blane improves on her 2021/23 little black number for him – elsewhere she serves everyone else just as dazzlingly as she did then. Strong proves in his final number a beautifully-voiced alien. That’s after the sound design from Gareth Owen, with a tricky brief to balance the band above, sometimes masks some singing and clarity. So Strong’s slightly masked-ball first-half warmed into a sexily throbbing Furter in Act Two. Now his pathos as well as cruelty blazes; Strong gets his teeth into Furter’s trigger personality.
Ensemble. Photo Credit: David Freeman
Jayme-Lee Zanoncelli needs singling out for special praise as Columbia, the forlorn woman already discarded by the ungrateful Furter. Her comic brilliance and sustained farcical scena towards the end is screamingly then heartbreakingly funny.
Natasha Hoeberigs makes a blissful Usherette with a nasally spot-on Soubrette voice and her great strength is stratospheric singing. As sultry Magenta, beautifully vamped, she breaks into the vertiginous coloratura runs of the ‘Queen of the Night’ aria from Mozart’s Magic Flute. She might do that in an opera house.
Job Greuter is another stand-out: particularly horrid as Riff Raff, moving like a crab, furtive to Furter, with an impressive presence. Edward Bullingham again doubles as the short-lived splendid Eddie exploding onto the scene before he’s sort of exploded (there’s no suitable exit, a pity). As Dr Scott he manages the Strangelove transition from upright U.S. scientist to someone from a less savoury background, but what else is new in America?
We’ve had gymnast Rockys before, but the beautifully rippling Morgan Jackson is more interesting. A somersaulting Rocky who can really act and sing. The cast acquit themselves with blissful abandon: Phantoms Ryan Carter-Wilson (also on the 2023-24 international tour), with Arthur Janes, Hollie Nelson, Erica Wild and Alex Hetherington as Swing and Stacey Monahan as Swing and Dance Captain.
Set Designer Hugh Durrant has made swift work of the opening outside with his sliding cartoons, a magnificent sarcophagi interior with its lab oppo with 1950s sci-fi retro-fits all old levers and brains, TV monitors (well a bit 70s that) all cast into that dream of what we grew up with before Thunderbirds. The band teeter above a gantry fronted with a sci-fi wrap doubling as a film spool. Fine effects too and the many-splendoured lighting design of Nick Richings is well to live or die for. There’s now an intimacy director, Rachel Kempton, and (surprisingly late) a dialect coach: Alexander Morgan.
Connor Carson, Adam Strong, Natasha Hoeberigs and Jayme-Lee Zanoncelli. Photo Credit: David Freeman
Photo Credit: David Freeman
Choreographer Nathan M Wright has people dance miracles round this stage. Gareth Owen’s sound design is always going to sound big, and if you’re in the stalls you’ll be blown off your feet. This time, even in the Circle, there’s sound adjustments to be made. But it’s the musical arrangements of Richard Hartley (additional ones now by Simon Beck) that fit here so sharply, realised by Music Supervisor Greg Arrowsmith and Music Director Josh Sood.
An excellent revival. The strength of this cast led with a special wit by Clune makes it absolutely worth seeing however many times you have. Otherwise, just see it!
Associate Costume Designer Christopher Porter, Wigs & Make-up Supervisor Darren Ware, Resident Director Annabelle Hollingdale, Associate Choreographer and Resident Director (Maternity Cover) Stefana Du Toit (Swing last time), Associate Sound Designer Russell Godwin, Production Managers Simon Gooding and Matt Jones for SGPM,
Original Casting Director Serena Hill CDG, Executive Producers Rocky Horror Company, Meryl Faiers, Producers Daniel Brodie and Matt Parritt, General Manager Jeffrey Brady. Production Co-ordinator Sophie Howard.
Company Manager Ben Jefferson, Technical Stage Manager Charlie Bennett, DSM Jo Burgess, ASM/Book Cover Alice Chapman, Technical ASM Dylan Ward-Jones, Head of Wardrobe Clare Tucker, Wardrobe Deputy Sean Gibbons, Head of Wigs Helen Robinson-Tsingos, Wigs Deputy Kate Van Doren, Sound No. 1 Alan Dufton, Sound No. 2 Ronan Douse, LX1 James Cusker, LX 2 Hamish Wards, Tech Swing Joseph Tate.
Lauren Chia and Connor Carson. Photo Credit: David Freeman
