Review of musical Rock Of Ages at Eden Court Inverness with five-star performances powering a tongue in cheek story of love and wannabe dreams

REVIEW: Rock Of Ages

Eden Court, Inverness

5 stars

IT wasn’t the song we expected to start the 80s rock extravaganza and raunchy rollercoaster plot of musical ROCK OF AGES on Tuesday… the sound of silence.

But the technical hitch was fixed on the third try and worked beautifully to get the sympathetic Eden Court audience onside, with a huge cheer greeting the show coming alive with the live band centre stage finally getting the chance to give their all with their take on Slade’s Cum On Feel The Noize, complete with unfeasibly low side-lunges from the guitarist.

The over the top, tongue in cheek fun – with well over 25 big classic rock numbers and a stageful of big exciting individual rock voices to do them justice – had begun.

Brilliantly setting the tone for the mix of all-out rock anthems from the ‘hair band’ era of the 80s and the cheesiest boy meets girl love story of wannabe stars Drew (Sam Turrell) and Sherrie (Gabriella Williams), was mischievous, borderline sleazy, narrator Lonny.

Playing him, Joe Gash turns in one of the many five-star performances of the show, accompanying some of Rock Of Ages’ best lines with a singing voice that soars to stratospheric wonder when he gets his big musical moments.

Breaking the fourth wall many times to speak directly to us, Lonny tackled the technical misfire head on: “What’s going down, Inverness? I know we went down twice …” He then – like any decent funnyman – picked out a ‘victim’ from the front row to tease throughout the show. Maybe one of the best of those moments came as he introduced a scene change with a Bob Dylan-style sign that flipped to ‘I love you Gillian’. Lonny also got some of the best lines – "He's an asshole, but undeniable – like herpes."

Running alongside Drew and Sherrie’s story is the dastardly Kleinman father Hertz (a threatening Vas Constanti) and son Franz (a neurotic tour de force from David Breeds) and their bid to redevelop the Sunset Strip in LA and the Bourbon Room venue – “it even smells of rock … and urine” – where the whole show is set, brave Regina (made a nerdy heroine by Vicki Manser) fighting them all the way.

Visual gags came all the time – wannabe rocker Drew (with a voice that would make him a star in any era) – arrived for his first-date picnic with Sherrie on a heroic motorbike, but a tiny mini version. And one of the biggest laughs in the show was delivered when Bourbon Room owner Dennis Dupree – Kevin Kennedy of Coronation Street’s Curly Watts fame showing skills we never knew he had then – performs an amazing feat cartwheeling across the stage. I mean it is him, isn’t it?

Another lovely bit from that dance with Lonny comes as the two lie on the floor, outstretched arms touching fingers, just for a munute, like God and Adam on Michaelangelo's painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling!

The constant jokes at the expense of the 80s are clever too.

When we first meet Sherrie – a lovely heartfelt portrayal from Gabrialla Williams with a killer voice to match – she is still in hometown Payola, Texas, rehearsing her Oscar speech with thanks to ”my co-stars Corey and Corey”. It surely reminded those of a certain age we've rewound to the Bratpack movie era when line-ups often included Corey Feldman or the late Corey Haim.

But there are also constant little jokes just for fun – the pizza delivery man arrives and knocks while a doorbell sound rings out.

Can you really go wrong with a show that smartly uses a big set on three levels to keep your eyes moving and a galaxy of epic starry songs from bands like Starship, Styx, Bon Jovi, Foreigner, Twisted Sister, Pat Benatar, Kiss, Europe, Journey, Joan Jett And The Blackhearts, Reo Speedwagon and Poison?

Just one tiny niggle, a couple of times the full-on blast of volume from some giant vocals verged on too much, one being Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again, with Sherrie, Justice and the company.

There are so many vocal talents to appreciate in this show – just one mini-moment came from Natalie Winser as Justice in Poison’s Every Rose Has A Thorn as her solo lines at the end of the song revealed a unique voice you would love to hear more from.

And as a centrepiece of the show, a star turn that is both comedy gold, mining so many rock clichés, and a voice you could listen to all night, is Cameron Sharp’s portrayal of the truly loathsome rock god Stacee Jaxx.

At his Bourbon Room solo gig and taking on Bon Jovi’s Wanted Dead Or Alive, complete with white Stetson, Stacee is lifted by fans’ hands as he lies like a rock n roll Jesus on the cross – it’s one of the biggest numbers of the show.

And you can’t help smirking when he seduces a smitten Sherrie with his ‘charms’, Stacee schmoozing her with the line: “This place is noisy – maybe you’d like to hang out in the men’s bathroom and talk about our dreams?”

But with this production of Rock Of Ages – an instant standing ovation from Tuesday's crowd – what’s not to love about this inspired take on – as Lonny puts it – “a sexier time”, a show that uses its own fizzing energy to let us forget our fuel bill and cost of living woes for a few short hours of rock n roll heaven. MC

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