Rock of Ages

It was a pleasure to return to the Maesteg Town Hall for Maesteg Musical Theatre Society’s production of Rock of Ages.

This jukebox-style musical features music from some of the largest names in Glam rock such as Whitesnake, Journey, Europe and many more, It follows the story of Sherrie Christian who leaves her home town and travels to LA to make her fortune, but like so many young people ends up waitressing on the strip. She gets a job in the Bourbon Room, which is the main set of the musical. I really liked the set from Scenery Solutions.

The band was set up centre stage and I was a bit concerned how this would affect stage movement as it did affect the performing space, however the cast handled this well. There was a good rock sound from the band well controlled by Richard.

The show has a large cast of characters and Nia Scourfield, Rachel Gauntlett and Calum Donaghue each gave good performances in their respective roles.

Hertz and Franz, who wanted to develop the strip were played by Matthew Jones and Ross Penhale-Thomas. 

Regina, the town planner who became the environmental warrior, was played by Ruth Young, the character had many funny scenes and I especially liked her duet Hit me with your Best shot with Franz.

Justice Charlier, the owner of the strip club, was played by Natalie Pitman, a powerful character with some of my favourite numbers from the show in Harden my Heart/ Shadows of the night and Every Rose has its Thorn.

Stacee Jaxx the egotistical leader of the band ‘Arsenal’ was played by Neil Hughes who certainly looked the part on stage.

Dennis Dupree , the owner of the Bourbon room was taken by Jordan Francis and he had some lovely scenes especially with Ross Donaghue who took on the role of Lonny who not only was Dennis' assistant but also narrated the show.  Ross gave a great performance in this role and I think the highlight for me was Can’t fight this Feeling. Well done both.

The company had double cast Drew and Sherrie and on the evening I was there they were played by Thomas Mines and Ffion Parry, both of these actors gave strong performances in their roles, their voices certainly suited their musical numbers and they worked well together.

The ensemble are really important in this show and all seemed to be having the time of their lives on stage with enthusiastic renditions of all the musical numbers.

The company did suffer from some technical sound issues on the evening I watched but they handled them well.

We could certainly Feel the noise and the audience joined in with enthusiasm for Don't stop believin. Congratulations to Sian, Richard and all the company on a night of Rock and Debauchery.

 

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