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RHS at the Queen's Theatre, Shaftesbury Ave., London
Saturday, July 5, 2003
Oh, Rocky, look … it’s our wedding!
It’s now Frank and Rocky’s pearl (30th) anniversary and today’s performance was the culmination of a 10-month tour that began in late 2002 and covered most areas of the UK. Since the last time I saw the show (Bromley, Saturday October 4, 2002) the company seemed to have tightened things up considerably: creases ironed out, new things added in. Of course, if there are any obvious problems these will be straightened out in rehearsals before most of us ever get to see the show, but the cast can never be sure how the audience will react until the show actually goes ‘live’ – particularly in terms of the audience participation lines people are going to come out with!
The Narrator (John Stalker) is a relative unknown in the world of theatre, though not in real life, having worked near the top of the police. His performance was excellent; I felt that he was having as much fun playing the Narrator as we were watching the show, which is as it should be! He isn’t really an obvious choice for Narrator – until it occurred to me several hours later that the ‘narrator’ in the film is the Criminologist! The other narrators on the tour were Rhona Cameron, Christine Hamilton, and ‘Nasty’ Nick Bateman (Big Brother) – Nick is the only one of these I can comment on, and I will say John Stalker compared favourably …
Janet (Katie Rowley-Jones) and Brad (Jon Boydon) seemed like naturals in their roles and I do hope they’ll be back for the autumn leg of the tour! Drew Jaymson played both Dr Scott and Eddie; he was particularly good as Scotty – every part the mad scientist. Really nobody let the cast down, although Riff (Neil Couperthwaite) was a little over-acted in my opinion! Jonathan Wilkes makes a good Frank as he truly has the charisma …
The music seems to get more ‘rock-y’ every time I see the show, which is a Good Thing, but I must admit to being a little disappointed by the lack of much ‘new’ in the way of the music, considering it was an ‘anniversary’ tour. But in all fairness the new version of ‘Touch-a’ was very good and in my opinion helped to speed up the pace of the show. The musicians (Iain Vince Gatt, Toby Drummond, Guy Holden Isles, Douglas Grannell and Dave Webb) are somewhat the unsung heroes: the show depends heavily on the music and yet few people could name them without looking at the programme …
It’s always hard to know what to say about costumes. Sue Blane, costume designer for the film as well as numerous live productions, designed the costumes here too, and I must admit I found some of the choices a little odd – but it could be that we are so used to seeing (and sometimes copying!) the costumes from the film, anything that deviates from this is seen as ‘not right’! Overall the costumes were good, if different from the movie (after all, what works on screen doesn’t necessarily work on stage) though Frank’s costume was in many ways similar to the movie one. I don’t think I will ever be able to bring myself to like the new Columbia costume though, which consists of a bustier, ‘patchwork’ type shorts (I’m guessing they are some kind of polyester, though I’m not sure) and a bizarre hairy yellow bolero jacket, and red trainers. Ho hum.
Roll on the autumn!
— irhps Mar 9, 11:54 PM #