Shock Treatment, King’s Head Theatre, N1

reviewed for The Times, 24 April 2015

 

 

Warnings about reality television don’t come more prescient than this. Shock Treatment, Richard O’Brien’s follow-up to his camp fiesta The Rocky Horror Show, originally came out as a film in 1981 and tells the story of an ordinary American woman so dazzled by the prospect of Kardashian-level fame that she’s talked into letting her husband fry in the electro-shock chair on live TV.

The film tanked, thanks partly to the high expectations of fans of the original cult classic. O’Brien refused to license an adaptation to stage musical for 30 years, until he was finally persuaded to take a chance on the screenwriter Tom Crowley and director Benji Sperring.

The risk has paid off. Shock Treatment should delight fans of the film and newcomers alike. Although Crowley has sheared off the motley crew of minor characters — Bert Schnick, the Dr Strangelove stand-in originally played by Barry Humphries, is the most notable absence — he’s kept each of the original songs, sharply arranged by Alex Beetschen. So O’Brien obsessives have plenty of opportunities to sing along.

Unlike in The Rocky Horror Show, our heroine isn’t held captive by transsexual aliens but by ordinary Americans, albeit in thrall to profit and spray tan. Rosanna Hyland and Mateo Oxley are outstanding as our dentally bleached TV anchors and Julie Atherton is fabulous in her transformation from girl next door to TV strumpet, making the most of Lucie Pankhurst’s sizzling choreography.

Neighbours alumnus Mark Little is perhaps underwhelming as Farley Flavors, the capitalist svengali behind the madness, although he wasn’t helped by the uneven sound balance on press night. Yet ultimately a show like this lives or dies by the catchiness of its musical numbers, and I was singing all the way home.