A right rock and role play

This inter-planetary Shakespeare adventure proves a gravity-free affair, as it juggles the Bard's most famous quotes, introduces rhyming couplets so lame that they enter on crutches and zaps the audience with hipswinging Fifties favourites. It starts with sexism - or, as the late Jim Henson might have said, male-chauvinist-pigsinspace - and develops through Freudian delusions and an overgrown monster, but this should not detract from the fact that rock 'n' roll is the throbbing pulse of the entire evening.

The problem with Return to the Forbidden Planet is that the audience remain in their seats, while the cast pounds out numbers intended to grab people by the groin and make them dance. Great Balls of Fire was simply not designed for politely tapping toes, and, as the show progresses, the question arises as to whether the promoters should take note from Sing-along-a-Sound of Music and encourage people to turn up with sci-fi costumes and vibrant vocal cords.

The Tempest is the template for the plot, and it also inspired the 1956 sciencefiction-movie Forbidden Planet. Adrian Cobey plays Captain Tempest, the chiseljawed hero, whose spaceship lands on a planet inhabited by mad scientist, Dr Prospero, his daughter Miranda and the roller-skating robot Ariel.

On Rodney Ford's flashing spaceship set, the cast does not so much deliver as blast the songs from the stage. As the ship's chef, Philip Reed fails to serve up the food of love, but performs a neuronetingling electric guitar solo that almost upstages the exploits of Diana Croft's science officer as she demonstrates through Freudian theory why Dr Prospero's subconscious, or Id - "Beware the march of Ids" - poses a threat.

This is a a show for partygoers who want to indulge in the rock'n' roll music of the spheres. Here, the playingis the thing, and the script a cheesy accomplice.

Return To The Forbidden Planet