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Voted for by over 100 experts including Simon Pegg and Roger Corman
The hip-hop impro duo work 2012 comedy highlights into a freestyle rap.
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This poodle-rock jukebox musical import from Broadway - where it was, oddly, a critical and popular success - is predictably loud, tacky and silly. It is also, let's concede, pretty slick.
As Kristin Hanggi's production cranks the amps up to 11 and tinsel rains down in nigh-suffocating quantities, the onstage band execute their bombastic riffs and masturbatory guitar solos with precision.
The cast are perfectly competent too. 'X Factor' winner Shayne Ward looks surprisingly comfortable in the tight trousers and luxuriant wig of egomaniac singer Stacee Jaxx; Oliver Tompsett and Amy Pemberton play two starstruck young lovers with hollering gusto; and Simon Lipkin gurns and grinds as the priapic, mullet-sporting narrator.
The biggest name - TV presenter Justin Lee Collins - puts in a slightly self-conscious turn as a Sunset Strip club owner; but as he gets relatively little stage time, it hardly matters much.
A much more serious problem is the shortage of laughs in Chris D'Arienzo's book. There's none of the sly wit of masterly comic rockumentary 'This Is Spinal Tap' here: this is full-on, balls-out spoof, its gags too cheap and broad to be genuinely funny.
As for the songs, by the likes of Whitesnake, Foreigner, Poison and Bon Jovi, they are (and always were) pretty awful. The crotch-exposing antics of a posse of scantily clad girl dancers offer a dubious distraction. But for all the show's pretensions to sleaze, its soulless shenanigans couldn't be much less rock'n'roll.
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What is 'following'?A somewhat sprawling Shaftesbury Avenue theatre, this ancient venue is one of theatreland's largest. Just as well, as it specialises in...
Read full venue reviewTransport Holborn/Tottenham Court Road
020 7379 5399
Tue-Fri 7.30pm; Sat 8pm and 4pm; Sun 7pm and 3.30pm
£20-£57.50. Runs 2hrs 30mins. Booking to Oct 20 2012
Sam Marlowe is talking out of his 'derriere!'
Why send a critic who hates Rock Music to review 'Rock of Ages'?
I treated my wife to show in Feb (while we were down for wkd at Excel Motorbike show fundraising for Charity) & the show unsurprisingly Rocked Out!
We were fortunate to have Nathan Amzi as Narrator & his quips & ad libs made the show. The only group that was 'awful' that Sam mentioned was Poison but even their sole decent track 'every rose has it's thorn' was included at an appropriate point in the performance.
Critics what do you know?
The audience got involved & thoroughly enjoyed themselves...
Surely that is a true meter/guage of how good a show really is!!??
Sam Marlowe is either a theatre snob/music snob or hasn't seen this show. No laughs? Are you serious? Idiot!
The story line isn't exactly unique, but I still loved it! Amazing performances from each and every person on stage. When the whole cast is dancing and singing together it is ELECTRIC. The choreography is brilliant and the cast seem to give it everything. Simon Lipkin is outstanding and the big names give honest, almost humble performances. If I had a choice between this and we will rock you, i'd go see this again (We will rock you is so bad I wanted to cry). Not really one for younger kids perhaps as its a bit risque and lots of big bad words! Try and sit as close to the front as poss.
Great fun musical!!! not really one for the theatre but went to shaftesbury on 4th Jan 2012 and had a great night!! cast were amazing especially lead male and female, shane ward does a great job as stacee jaxx and the narrator has amazing interaction with audience!! well worth going to and if your not singing and dancing at the end then you have to take a good look at yourself!!
This musical is easy, cheesy and fun. My wife and i attended on a Tuesday night when 3 of the leading cast were absent (Drew, Sherrie and Stacee Jaxx) but the understudies were great and we would have completely forgotten the fact if we hadn't had seen how good Shayne Ward seemed in the preview clips. I'm looking forward to seeing what Tom Cruise makes of the role in the feature film version.
Fantastic music, if you like rock that is, silly story line but quite funny, brilliant singers - we loved it so much we're going back again soon.
Great songs sung by a great cast. Predictable story line but with such great comedy and singing who cares? Was not at all what I expected it to be. Give it a shot and you are sure to love it.
A well thought out storyline, a fun narrator and a cast who look as if they are having fun is a sure winner for any good musical and Rock of Ages provides this and much more :)
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