Richard O'Brien's new show has already secured a contingent of infernally high camp, whooping groupies. But The Rocky Horror Show this ain't. O'Brien writes a damn fine tune (though he sometimes goes a chord change too far); the band are tight in a session-musician kind of way, and his trio of backing vocalists are assured and alluring in their tutus (even the guy, naturally). However, the patter that frames the songs is uneven and delivered with a surprising lack of panache. As Mephistopheles Smith, repositioning Hell as an eternal club for hipsters, O'Brien is resplendent in pointed tail and cloven hooves, but uneasy in his spiel; he fails miserably with the Bill Hicks device of using the F-word like a comma. All right for a while, but you wouldn't want to be stuck there for ever.
Written for The Independent.
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights reserved.
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