Vampires Rock Ghost Train
WITH its pierced tongue firmly in its razor-slashed cheek, Steve Steinman’s Vampires Rock Ghost Train is cheesier than a runaway truck load of Ritz crackers, and as equally irresistible.
This hugely popular show has been running for years with hundreds of performances and is building up a cult following similar to that of Rocky Horror or The Sound of Music with punters turning up suitably dressed up.
It’s a shame there weren’t more at the Pavilion for a terrific night’s entertainment, but I imagine most shows would struggle on a bleak Sunday in January, and so soon after Christmas too.
Even so, Steinman and his top-notch colleagues were undeterred and pulled out all the stops, simultaneously celebrating and sending up classic rock from Meatloaf, AC DC, Queen, Bon Jovi and the like.
There are some truly dreadful jokes, shamelessly delivered with just an arched eyebrow in our general direction, lines that wouldn’t be out of place in a pantomime but all go to add to the tremendous sense of fun.
In a plot that is more Scooby Doo than Bram Stoker, Baron Rockula (Steinman) and his dopey sidekick Bosley the janitor (played with hapless doofusness by John Evans), and their vampire mates have been trapped in a deserted ghost train ride for the last century.
They can only be freed by drinking a virgin’s blood, so obviously they’re not going to find any in Weymouth, are they?
Rockula and his arch nemesis Van Halen-Sing (see what they did there?) clash over the hand of Roxy Honey Box (brilliantly played by Hayley Russell, who has a thunderous voice which belies her petite frame) and in the dramatic denouement, well, let’s just say he would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids.
All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable evening, with epic music superbly delivered by rockers The Lost Boys (guitarists Jamie Hiscox and Niro Knox, bassist Mary Garcia, Andy Preston on keys and Pete Jean, possibly the hairiest drummer since Animal out of The Muppets) and backing singers and dancers Penny Jones and Victoria Jenkins.
All that and enough fake blood, flames and explosions to wake the undead. What a hoot.
NICK HORTON
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