Review: Rocky: A Horror Show, Wardrobe Theatre

In this impending season of good cheer, I’m poring over my stained and dog-earred cookbooks for inspiration – particularly Hugh Fearlessly-Eatsitall’s Three Good Things on a Plate, which applies the magic rule of using three key ingredients.

The Wardrobe Theatre ensemble likewise concocts its seasonal formula of alt-theatrical good cheer by working to the rule of three – in its case, an annual mash-up of two popular genres, deconstructed with a liberal dash of feverishly filthy comedy. After the slightly hit-and-miss Muppits Die Hard (fluffy puppets meet action thriller) and Goldilock, Stock & Three Smoking Bears (fairytale teds meet gangster underworld), Wardrobe Theatre succeeds in packing a knock-out punch this Christmas with comedy gender-bender, Rocky: A Horror Show (boxing tear-jerker meets uber-camp cult musical).

There’s plenty about Rocky that makes it the outright winner of the comedy heavyweight title so far in this series of alternative adult Xmas shows. For starters, the script is really tight, dirty and hilarious, replete with purposely clunky and ironic over-exposition: “Why are you standing in your apartment staring at the wall?”… “It would be great if you could just listen to the LYRICS, I just told you what I was going to do in the SONG.”… “This abandoned skating rink is really huge and scary.”

Rocky is good fun and exceptionally well made – particularly for a devised comedy show with no discernible writer or dramaturg on board – and also manages to take serious swipes at both sexist stereotyping (“Women LIKE it when you call them girls!”) and political pigs like Trump (“If all that fails all you need to do is grab ’em by the pussy… It was just locker-room talk, I swear!”).

The cast of four multi-roles madly, with each deployed to the best of their individual talents. We get fantastic comedy timing and understatement from James Newton as mousey love-interest Adrian, and superb physical and verbal clowning without a whiff of vanity from Emma Keaveney-Roys. There’s grotesque gender-bending posturing and a shamelessly porno-chic Freddie Mercury tribute from the outrageous Harry Humberstone (who, fortunately for the audience, doesn’t know when to stop) and gutsy singing, lumpen mugging and a rock-solid central performance from Katy Sobey in the Italian Stallion title role, crowned by the worst-best black nylon wig in the history of, erm… black nylon wigs.

What also sets Rocky apart is the quality of the tightly choreographed movement and dance routines, and the songs and singing – doubtlessly embellished by songbird Verity Standen, who is name-checked in the programme. It’s hard to say whether the excellence of the show is ultimately down to Tom Brennan’s cannily light directing skills (floats like a butterfly) or the crazed input of the four performers (stings like a bee): but, either way, it’s a cracking confluence.

The second half strays here and there by succumbing to the temptation to introduce a fourth element (spoiler alert!) into what is already ‘three good things on a stage’: but, all the same, nothing can detract from the fact that Rocky looks set to be the adult comedy triumph of the Christmas season in Bristol. So get yourself a fistful of tickets now before they’re all gone, take a ringside seat, and have a good roll round in the aisles of the Wardrobe Theatre, punchdrunk with glee.

Rocky: A Horror Show continues at the Wardrobe Theatre until Saturday, January 21. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/rocky-a-horror-show