Rock of Ages

This is an extraordinary evening of theatre – whoever performs it – being a ‘Juke Box Musical’ which, stands or falls on the audience’s love (or not) of the music. Set in Los Angeles of the eighties and featuring music by such acts as Poison, Whitesnake, Foreigner, Starship, Bon Jovi, Twisted Sister and Mötley Crüe It is, by necessity, very loud and requires boundless energy and commitment by the cast.  

The open set looked wonderful, with the bar of the Bourbon Room stage left, and a multi-use ‘green room’ stage right with the band placed at the back of the stage – it took us back to the era almost immediately.  It has been said that the eighties was “The decade of big hair and shoulder pads, power ballads and rock gods and also the decade that Taste forgot and the costumes were excellent and they, together with the set immediately transported those of us old enough to remember, right back to the tail end of that era.

I must offer my heartiest congratulations to Director and Choreographer, Liz Cardall – who with some imaginative use of the theatre really brought the cast out to the audience – using a platform ‘cat walk’ up the centre aisle and both that and the side aisle were used as entrances and exits, meaning the audience were fully involved with the whole show. The chorus had obviously been VERY well drilled – and it showed – with simple but highly effective routines performed extremely well.

The cast were quite simply amazing – their enthusiasm and energy was boundless and they were apparently were having a simply wonderful time themselves – which proved infectious and on the night I attended they carried the audience with them every step of the way. 

The absolute necessity of the volume of the music, together with the American drawl does most unfortunately mean that it is difficult to catch the words both sung and spoken, but the, somewhat sordid in places, storyline was portrayed quite graphically so the plot was easily understood. 

 As Lonny says, the show is simply an excuse for “poop jokes and Whitesnake songs” or perhaps even the new Marmite of the theatre in that you will either love it or hate it but ignore it you cannot.

Many congratulations on, what certainly appears to be a highly successful show for the Society and if you all enjoyed it half as much as you appeared to you have obviously had a ball.  Thank you for making me so welcome.

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