Rock of Ages

ROCK OF AGES is a musical, book by Chris D’Arienzo, arrangements and orchestrations by Ethan Popp with a rather lightweight story of boy meets girl. When Sherrie arrives in LA to realise her dream, she meets Drew and they fall in love.    It’s packed with rock anthems from the 1980s and we follow their story as they face the challenges as they pursue their ambitions. These include: a hard nosed property developer determined to gentrify LA,  mixed emotions and the brutality of showbusiness.    

The costumes were excellent and varied.    There were raunchy outfits for the Venus Club Dancers, fabulous flashy rock star gear for Lonny and an assortment of beads and Bohemian garb for the fiery hippy, Regina.    Wigs and jeans were in abundance and great attention had been given to completing the overall 80s' look.

The set recreated the exterior of the club complete with ‘Girls Girls Girls' sign, a large Hollywood sign and the LA city scape.    A part of the set swivelled to reveal the bathroom of the club and then an office.    Changes were done swiftly. The inside of the club, with balcony, was well dressed with bar and stools with the walls being adorned with gold discs and signs including a ‘Route 66’ sign.  The props, especially the musical instruments, were used to great effect.

The sound and lighting were brilliant; multi coloured lights, flickering lights and lots of use of smoke.  The multitude of well-known rock songs were belted out by this bunch of talented vocalists, supported by fantastic musicians.   

This show was electric from the start and had a great buzz to it.  We’d been warned that there was bad language and adult content and we weren’t disappointed!    With an incredible cast all giving good performances, this was a trip down memory lane for those of a certain age as the show was packed with rock anthems and melodies  including ‘Don’t Stop Believin’, ‘I wanna know what love is’, 'The Final Countdown', ‘Keep on lovin’ you’ and ‘We Built this city’.   Some of the stand out performances came from Paul Morris as Lonny who narrated the story, often directing his comments to the audience, and Richard Bond as Dennis Dupree, founder of the club, who had excellent comic timing.   There were strong vocals from Bradley Hall as Drew Boley and Chloe Ballard as Sherrie, combined vulnerability with assurance as her confidence grew.    With direction and choreography by Angus Jacobs and Musical Direction by Colin Gray this was an excellent show that totally immersed the audience in the 1980s and sent them home humming a plethora of memory songs.  

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