Reviewed by Kinga Kusyk and Evie Glen
The story of Rocky Horror began not in the cinema, but on stage. In 1973, Richard O’Brien penned a musical titled The Rocky Horror Show. On one hazy night back in October 2024, it came to us at Glasgow Pavillion Theatre. We’re sorry to flash you back to last Halloween with this delayed review, but fear not! You can still catch your fix of corseted Jason Donovan this June… Though we can’t say we’d recommend it.
Seated beside a stone-faced couple in top hats and sequins, we watch as the curtains draw back and reveal what looks like the Daft Friday team had a go at the set. The tired candyland-looking set is more akin to a dusty charity shop of horrors. As for the costumes, they also seem to be recycled, doing little to counter whispered allegations that this touring production is tired and outdated.
Maybe it’s the aging crowd, or the fact we’re watching it in Glasgow’s ‘home of the pantomime’, but the show seems like a dulled down family-friendly version of Rocky Horror. Though the narrator (Nathan Caton) doesn’t shy away from an innuendo, they often feel, at best, like the Freudian slips of a pantomime dame and, at worst, uncomfortably forced.
During the break, I (Kinga) come across a family in the queue for the toilets who brought a 12 year old and her 14 year old cousin, and I could only imagine the journey home having your mum explain what “teabagging” is. Jokes about blowjobs come off less funny when you’re sitting next to your gran.
When you have creative control over one of the most iconic productions, use it! Rocky Horror stands the tests of time as one of the longest running contemporary musicals. However tradition can turn sour as the productions run the same bad talent. Richard O’Brain took a risk 50 years ago when he gave taboo a platform, only for his success to be clamped down by ‘your mum’ jokes and a 56 year old 90s heartthrob.
Describing his reprise of Frank N. Furter, the role he first adopted in 1998, Jason Donovan told The Telegraph ‘I’m 56 and I still look good in leather. I reckon I’ve got about a year and a half left before it starts looking tragic’. We’re afraid to break the news Jason: it already looks tragic, and it has nothing to do with how good you look in leather.
Though the face of the poster was mysteriously indisposed for the press showing, one audience member of another Glasgow showing took to social media to describe her experience of Rocky Horror with Donovan in the leading role. Melisa Kelly summed up Donovan’s Frank as ‘an offensive gay stereotype’. Her scathing critique invokes the historic relationship between The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the LGBTQ+ community as one that has always promoted a deep connection and mutual support. At a time when mainstream culture often ignored or condemned queer people, Rocky Horror provided a safe haven for self-expression.
Dr. Frank-N-Furter is the film’s central character – a flamboyant and gender-bending figure who represents freedom and rebellion. His line ‘don’t dream it and be it’ rallied those who felt confined by society’s gender and sexual standards. Kelly took to social media to publicly shame Donovan for his performance which, to her, was ‘the most disrespectful, ill prepared, and borderline offensive thing [she has] seen on stage’.
She describes how Donovan appeared drunk on stage, as he stumbled left to right while referencing his past cocaine habit (which he supposedly kicked at the end of the ‘hedonistic’ 90s). When coupled with the questionable quips of the narrator, so many of the jokes ring homophobic and offensive, rather than, well… funny.
The narrator’s references tended to be on the edge of outdated (Mohammed al Fayed), misjudged (I think the Hawk Tuah reference went over the heads of most in the audience) or, in one case, a bit classist (‘Those who would stop at nothing to satisfy their base desires – Easterhouse’). With a clutter of jokes that seem exclusive, rather than inclusive, and the finger pointing done from a place of hateful judgement, the show seems completely contrary to what it set out to overcome.
Just a thought: for a show sustained by a tradition of audience callbacks, maybe we should leave the references up to the audience? They certainly made us chuckle when, in response to Brad’s quip about Frank’s castle being ‘some kind of hunting lodge for rich weirdos’, someone at the front called back ‘Balmoral’. Hey Edinburgh Tab, take note.
Maybe, then, the saving grace of our screening was the absence of any Jason Donovans. Stephen Webb’s portrayal of Frank was polished and inoffensive. Though his accent faltered occasionally, it did far less to distract from an otherwise pretty convincing performance than did Donovan falling into the props and laughing through his lines.
What’s frustrating is that these younger talents, like Webb, seem to have been cast aside by a touring company stuck in a tired state of nostalgia. And not a nostalgia for the subversive Rocky Horror of the 70s either, but for the golden years of their leading man. They seem to cling to Jason Donovan like a toxic ex who just popped back up to wish them happy (50th) birthday, just when they were about to move on.
But maybe this is inevitable with a touring production. Celebrity sells, and there were at least a few top-hatted ladies who enjoyed themselves (pictured). It was my (Evie’s) first Rocky Horror Show and, primed by the Rocky Horror storyline in Perks of Being a Wallflower, I was waiting for my Charlie Kelmeckis coming of age moment. Safe to say it hadn’t come even by the third rendition of ‘Time Warp’. Maybe I was expecting too much from a commercial production, but it all just felt a bit inauthentic.
While Dr. Frank-N-Furter remains one of the most iconic roles in cinematic history, and songs like Time Warp, Sweet Transvestite, and Dammit, Janet are embedded in the fabric of pop culture, an authentic contemporary production is possible. This one, however, is begging for retirement.
