The Rocky Horror Show Storms the Palace

★★★★★ | The Rocky Horror Show — Palace Theatre, Manchester

There are theatre nights that feel like a performance, and there are nights that feel like a full-scale event. The Rocky Horror Show at the Palace Theatre was firmly the second kind.

A night that feels like an event

You could feel it before the lights even went down. The room was up for it, and by the end the crowd were on their feet before the curtain had properly come down — I’ll admit I was doing the Time Warp myself, and the lady in front of me leaned back to say, “Ooh, this is racy.”

She wasn’t wrong. That’s the thing Rocky Horror does better than almost anything: it turns the whole room into part of the show.

The band on stage makes all the difference

A lot of that comes down to the live sound. With the band right there on stage, the whole thing lands with extra punch — loud, tight and full of life, exactly what a show like this needs. It drove the pace all night.

Fans and first-timers, all in it together

What struck me was the mix in the audience. There were people who clearly knew every beat — ready for the shout-outs, the callbacks, all the familiar madness — sitting alongside first-timers having it thrown at them for the very first time.

Richard O’Brien’s cult classic has always thrived on that collision, and 50 years on from the film it still completely lands. It’s racy, it’s outrageous, it’s unapologetic, and underneath the corsets and fishnets it’s really about freedom — “don’t dream it, be it,” and just enjoying the moment.

A company that knows exactly what it’s doing

This particular production — Christopher Luscombe’s, the same one that played the West End — has toured the world, from Italy and France to New Zealand, with Richard O’Brien himself giving it his blessing.

Stephen Webb leads as Frank-N-Furter, with Haley Flaherty as Janet and James Bisp as Brad — the squeaky-clean couple who stumble into the whole thing — Ryan Carter-Wilson as the creepy butler Riff Raff, and Morgan Jackson as Rocky. It’s a company that knows exactly what it’s doing.

Twenty seconds flat: Laura Bird’s quick change

I got a real sense of that from Laura Bird before the show. She plays two roles that couldn’t be more different — the pink, girly, high-pitched Usherette who opens the night, and then Magenta, the creepy maid, about ten minutes in.

Right at the end there’s a change back that she’s timed at around twenty seconds: full shoes, jewellery, wig and costume, two dressers working on her at once, no talking, just little taps on her leg and head to tell her when to move. Watching that kind of precision while everything looks so effortless out front adds a whole extra layer to the night.

The perfect home for it

The Palace is the perfect home for it, too — an old theatre with real character, and Rocky Horror suits that down to the ground.

The verdict  ★★★★★

This is the company’s final week before they close the run, so they’re sending it out with everything they’ve got. If you’ve never seen it, this is exactly the production that makes you understand why people come back again and again.

It’s noisy, naughty, brilliantly performed and completely committed to entertaining you. Know it already and you’ll love the familiar chaos. Don’t, and you’ll probably leave wondering why you waited so long.

Worth the money, worth the freedom — go, and let go!