Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Danielle Hope, Luke Walsh, Kevin Kennedy, Lucas Rush, Zoe Birkett, Sam Ferriday, Rhiannon Chesterman, Andrew Carthy, Vas Constanti, Erin Bell, Alexander Day, Joshua Dever, Sinead Kenny, Adam Strong, Bobby Windebank, Saran Webb, Paris Green, Ryan-Lee Seager.
It could be argued that one of the great cinematic let downs of recent years is the travesty that befell audiences as they settled down to watch the film adaptation of the musical, Rock of Ages. When a film limps along and then finally stutters, out of breath, unfit to even bend over and look down into the gutter, then it can make any fan of the original theatrical production question what the point of the exercise was. At the very least it can leave a bad, almost bile infested, taste in the mouth that can perhaps unfairly tarnish your thoughts before ever seeing the production on stage again.
It is delve in to the horrors of some film studio executive’s minds that sees the audience short changed when it comes to adapting what is a perfectly enjoyable night out, woe betide the suffering of the fan, the casual viewer alike that must witness in such technicolour yawn the beckoning call of playing anything like Rock of Ages that comes with a safety net, with an over-bearing sense of protection which does nothing when capturing the thrill and sarcasm of the age on stage.
The twin devils of travesty and joyful response are perhaps never better framed than watching a cast on stage rip to pieces what has been placed before a national audiences, the fourth-wall breaks, the suggestive nods, the winks and the balls to be better than what Hollywood could ever aspire to. It is the reflection of the times, the over-exaggeration, the near model of toxic behaviour, on both genders counts, the excess, the 80s were the antipathies of what we as a society had needed, the crass over-indulgence, and yet it produced some of the greatest music to come out of America, the stadium anthems and the poetic insight, a glut maybe on the senses, but as Rock of Ages at the Empire Theatre proved, it still resonates us with us today.
Loud and proud, the national hymn of Twisted Sister’s rebellion and Bon Jovi’s almost cinematic urban western feel, these are the high points of the 80s, one dominated by business, of the start of gentrification, and of marginalising people for the music they love.
With great performances from Kevin Kennedy as club owner Dennis and Lucas Rush’s wonderfully over the top narrator Lonny, Rock of Ages as a stage spectacle took on the cinema adaption and beat it to within an inch of its life.
Rock may have its detractors, in the modern age it perhaps an air of toxicity in which we reflect upon with greater mindfulness, but there is no doubting how good the music created by the genre and the artists who made it happen; a rock in a sea of troubles.
Ian D. Hall