You read the words political, musical and comedy and you don’t think they belong in the same sentence. You hear the word Chumbawamba and you think ‘I get knocked down but I get up again, you’re never gonna’ keep me down!’ You keep hearing the word panto from the audience beforehand and you know that THAT can’t be right. How does it all fit on one stage?
Sex & Docks & Rock ‘n’ Roll is a stage-ridden sitcom (not a panto) set in the McDermott’s living room during the Liverpool Docks strike of 1960. This very regular ‘dysfunctional family’ sing and joke their way through a two week period in the safe confines of their household while outside the world is going mad. Mum, Jean (Lisa Howard), as well as the narrator and driving force of the show, seems the only character that’s remotely involved in the action, while her family sit in with a cup of tea and a biscuit.
All together the play is a quick-paced slapstick comedy played out by characters you can relate to, although not from real life, more so from the telly. Dad Ronnie (Dean Nolan) is an armchair slob that sits beneath a picture of Stalin and stops everything for Z-Cars, son Jack (Nigel Lister) is focussed on his band and an attempt to find a drummer before the big show, aunty moaning Mona (Kyla Goodey) has her absent husband Spotty John on the brain and poor cousin Barry (Harry Hammer) with his ‘little guitar’ is typecast as the fool.
The music is fantastic throughout, with a mixture of more classical tunes and old school rock ‘n’ roll binded together with hilarious lyrics that tie into the storyline. The only low point is a scene in the second half where Jean tells us a story of the goings on backstage at Jack’s gig – show, don’t tell, please. Ignoring that though, the show is just plain fun to watch! Everybody loves a sitcom.
Oh, and it is definitely not a panto…with the exception of the one or two panto-esque references to the audience (oh no there isn’t, OH YES THERE IS!).
