Director Tom Brennan has conjured another Wardrobe Theatre Production ‘classic’ with this wonderfully entertaining and preposterous mash-up that lampoons the idea of the American Dream through a gender spectrum kaleidoscope.

Blending rags to riches boxing epic Rocky with the kitsch and camp of Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show must have looked like irresistibly low-hanging fruit for the likes of the Wardrobe team, who have a habit of being able to max out any decent idea that appeals to their alternative approach to theatre making. Rocky Shock Horror is another hit to add to a growing catalogue. Its mayhem with message approach pulls no punches in a subtext that exposes the pain of the American working class and the lure of Trump as its conduit of frustration, but doing it in such a way that leaves the audience with its facial laughter lines strengthened and irony emblazoned on its intellect.

Caitlin Campbell stars as down-at-heel boxer Rocky Balboa. Adorned with a luxurious black nylon wig, our Rocky sets out to do battle with the unassailably sex-hungry Apollo Creed (aka Frank-n-Furter), adorned in bustier, suspenders, stockings and a skimpy red-sequined codpiece, as well as large black boxing gloves. Rocky falls for shrinking violet Adrian (Janet), played with hilarious coyness by Daniel Norford who also doubles as Rocky’s ageing trainer Mickey. Kim Heron puts in a sizzling set as the rough and tough pal Paulie, and later as a wonderfully demented roller skating Riff Raff, delivering lines mid glide. Wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ baseball cap, Herons’ Paulie delivers the most visceral lines of the night in a moment of abject self-loathing, while dialogues about aliens chimed with Trumpian threat. Alex Roberts is a tour de force as the be-stockinged Apollo.

Acting with minimal props against a simple backdrop of changing room lockers for the first half, glitzy red curtains and a rudimentary boxing ring for the second, the cast’s performances were enhanced instead by an pre-recorded musical backing track and some sometimes wonderfully mistimed noises off. Lighting from Edmund Mckay, notably when Rocky starts to reel from a punch and the ring starts to feel a surreal place, was always an active element.

In Brechtian style, it was sometimes the songs that took the narrative forwards. Rocky’s duets with Adrian, ‘I’ve got Gaps That Need Filling’ or ‘You Don’t Get My Needs’ were both suitably laced with double entendre.

As in the original ‘Rocky Horror’, ‘Shock Horror’ never leaves sex off the menu for too long. Norford’s portrayal of the shy Adrian finally getting ‘her’ rocks off with the incorrigible Creed left little to the imagination, while some groping around the feet of those in the front row was pure pandemonium.

For sheer bawdy and bravado entertainment look no further. If you are not shouting and clapping by the end of this two-hour hullabaloo, I’d be surprised.

★★★★★     Simon Bishop   14^th November 2108