Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Duncan James, Joanne Clifton, Ben Adams, Laura Harrison, Beverly Callard, Kristian Lavercombe, Miracle Chance, Callum Evans, Ross Chisari, Rees Budin, Shelby Farmer, Katie Monks, Jake Small.

It is the high point of excess and frivolity, the moment when counter culture rubbed shoulders with the inexhaustible and the merriment of cartoonish sing a long, producing without a doubt one of the finest pieces of musical theatre to see the light of day.

Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show never seems to age, its message of anything goes, of revealing all that was once hidden, buried by the repression first imposed with colourless charm by the Victorians and further obscured by the hangover of moral subjugation as people such as Mary Whitehouse and her like ran a crusade through the heart of openness and acceptance, is one which cannot be contained, its creator would not stand for such a move to silence one of the greatest villains on stage for long.

The point of the Rocky Horror Show though must arguably stand of its inclusivity, not just for the idea of bi-sexuality, of subverting what it means to be godless and revelling in the passion of creation through the means of science but in the way it opens the doors to the audience to join in, to immerse themselves within the very heart of the play to the point where every line has the potential to be greeted with a succession of innuendo, suggestion and implication; more than a raised eyebrow, this is scaffolding that underpins the whole beauty of the musical.

The anticipation is always on the tip of the tongue, the stockings and garters overflow, the music always paramount and crushing each drop of verbal insinuation, and depending on the full-blown appearance of the main characters and the small additions to their ambiguity, is enough to stoke the fires of the souls of the audience in the Empire Theatre alight with untethered passion. It may be a sight to behold as you watch the bent knees drawn in tight and the feather boas lofted into the air, but it is the sound that grabs you, that makes you understand why the counter culture was the blade needed to rip open the stuffy mask worn by an era besotted with regulation, rules and double-standards.

A colourful evening of theatre, raised eyebrows fully lofted, and in performances by Miracle Chance as Columbia, Callum Evans as Rocky and Beverly Callard giving the audience a much-needed roasting as the Narrator, Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show still thankfully knows how to make an audience’s heart beat out of time and gloriously so. Terrific and silky, a musical that sets its own beat.

Ian D. Hall