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Rock Of Ages Musical Review-Sunderland Empire
I am becoming a regular to Rock Of Ages, I think I’ve seen the show since its initial run to now around 5 times. From Danielle Hope. Rhiannon Chesterman and now Gabriella Wiliams in the leading role.
I grabbed it this time at the Sunderland Empire- Matinee performance.
A couple of new jokes had been added in since I last saw it and obviously the cast changes.
I won’t be comparing the actors to their predecessors, I don’t think that’s fair. Each actor brings the character alive and they do it in their own way. Inevitably some parts of the script are suited more to one actor than another.
I haven’t been to Sunderland empire since I was a child, I remember watching a pantomime- Mother Goose so it was kind of exciting to go back to this venue.
I even brought my dad along to this show. His comments were “ This show is very energetic”, it sure is, lively performance from the whole cast and fantastic choreography.
I won’t go into the story detail as I’ve commented on this before in my last review- here is the link.
Cameron Sharp took on the Role of Stacee Jax but I was not particularly enamored this was the right role for Cameron. The stage presence was just not there for Stacee, who has a big ego. The actual lines were delivered fine but the nuances of what you’d expect for Stacee was not there.
I was blown away by David Breed’s performance of Franz, he certainly brought this character to life and delivered the jokes right on the bullseye.
I’ve said this before but the role of Justice who this time was played by Natalie Winsor needs to be much bigger in this show. Justice’s part on stage is not big but should be way bigger, I wish I could re-write the part of her and weave her in the story more.
On this particular performance three stars shone out for me, when an actor is on top-form, their performance is memorizing. These were for me, Gabriella Williams- Sherriee, Joe Gash- Lonny and Vas Constanti- Hertz Klineman.
Starting off with Joe- he had humour, he had timing and he knew how to engage with the audience at the right time. His performance was superb.
Last time I saw Vas’s performance it was a bit mediocre, but in this performance he played it so well and made the character really come alive.
Finally – Gabriella Williams who played Regina last time now had the starring role. Gabriella brought a degree of feistiness to the role and her acting/singing abilities were superb.
There was a couple of sound problems on the show, left hand side speaker seemed to come alive around 10 minutes after the show had started, also the microphone did not come on for Lonny at one part.
The show has several moments whereby the speech parts are overlapped by other actors, it provides liveliness and energy but also it makes it actually hard to hear the lines, as it’s a cacophony of noise.
The show was brilliant in its delivery and definitely worth watching.
