

The Rocky Horror Show
“It’s astounding; time is fleeting…” so go the opening lines of ‘Time Warp’, the instantly recognisable number from Richard O’Brien’s still exhilaratingly transgressive rock musical-turned-movie The Rocky Horror Show. My brain can’t quite compute that we’ve been jumping to the left and stepping to the right with our hands on our hips and our knees in tight for 50 years now – five of which spun out before I was even born. An entire half century has passed since newly engaged naïve young things Brad (a perma-perky Ethan Jones, fresh from 9 to 5 the Musical) and Janet (Deirdre Khoo, Once, adorable) bust a tire and tread unwittingly into dastardly Dr Frank-N-Furter’s creepy castle, burning bright in the velvet darkness. Former Neighbours star Jason Donovan pops the song’s pelvic thrust as he steps back into Frank’s high heels once more, plus a leather corset and stockings as the renegade Frank, the mad scientist from the planet Transexual who, in just seven days, can make himself a ma-aaaaaa-aaaaan. Here the marbled, Charles Atlas-like test tube perfection Rocky is portrayed with wide-eyed innocence by Jamaican-born dancer and choreographer Loredo Malcolm, whose stitch-like tattoos fittingly call to mind Frankenstein’s Monster from gothic author Mary Shelley’s sci-fi horror urtext. It’s just a shame that Frank’s quest for bodily perfection has cast off both loyal servant Columbia (Darcey Eagle) and her ex Eddie (Ellis Dolan, better when depicting Frank’s older UFO-investigating