Rock Of Ages

I was invited * to see the opening night of Rock Of Ages last night in New Theatre Cardiff.

Off I went again not knowing what to expect. All I knew that it was a love story.

Sitting in the audience waiting, I was taken back to drunken nights in my hours playing rock band, when I had a quick look through the program I recognised a few songs too.

When it started my mate said this is nothing like the movie, oh so this was a movie! At first I was like ok what am I watching here, I wasn’t expecting that!

The narrator Lonny, played by Lucas Rush bounced around the stage with so much energy it was brilliant to watch. You could see he had a great relationship with everyone on that stage, even poor Louise off stage! The little mishap with the light he used as a moment for laughter, he just made me laugh.

So the story followed Sherrie (Danielle Hope) and Drew ( Luke Walsh) both chasing their dreams on the sunset strip, one to be an actor one to be a rockstar, where of course they fell in love! It’s a love story after all.

I wasn’t expecting some of the raunchy scenes! Of course sex, drugs and rock and roll all go hand in hand apparently it’s the naughty good stuff.

I laughed from the beginning to end, I sang along to most songs and just felt I wanted to get up have a drink and a dance! I was thankful that everyone got up at the end, at least we could move whilst clapping.

I thought the set up was great, the stage was well lit and I loved the live band on stage, it just felt that little more rocky. The change of props all worked well, and I loved the screen at the top I first noticed it moving with the dancing fish. The whole stage was worked on, there was always an actor on some part of that stage and I thought it worked really well.

When Justice ( Zoe Birkett ) started to sing I had goosebumps she was amazing, she sang with so much love and oomph she gave it her all and she was amazing. What a voice.

I do feel the second half seemed a little more rushed than the first the story in general as if they could have had an extra fifteen minutes that’s all that would have been needed.

I’ve not stopped going on about it today, and have told everyone if they can go get tickets because they won’t be disappointed. I also really want to grab rock band out of the attic!

You can get tickets from New Theatre from 6th to 10th November and they start from £26.00 and some days already have low availability.

* I was gifted my tickets in exchange for a review.