Jackie Clune talks Rocky Horror ahead of Empire date for cult classic

When Jackie Clune was first approached to play the Narrator in The Rocky Horror Show it’s perhaps fair to say she wasn’t really aware of what she had signed up for.

Although she had watched the film at some point, she reveals she had never actually seen Richard O’Brien’s cult smash hit stage show. At least not until the day before she went on for the first time.

“It was a bit of an eye opener,” she admits. “I didn’t really know what’s going on.

“If you don’t know the plot, it’s crazy. But I just thought, well this looks like a lot of fun. I’m not really sure what I’ve just seen, but I’m just going to go with it.”

Rehearsals meanwhile involved three days in a tiny dance studio near Covent Garden with the assistant director and MD hurling words at her to get her used to the, let’s say, participatory nature of the musical which has been a firm fan favourite for half-a-century.

“I used to do stand-up, and I’ve done some radio presenting and stuff,” Clune points out, “so I know about being off the cuff, I know how important it is to be in control and be the one that wins any kind of heckling contest.”

Indeed. Liverpool Empire audiences with very long memories may recall her doing warm-up for Puppetry of the Penis when it visited the theatre some two decades ago. Nothing is surely likely to phase her after that.

“That was a great fun tour,” she smiles. “There are some cities you go to and you know that’s going to be a really good laugh. Liverpool is one of them, Cardiff, Newcastle, Glasgow…I’m really looking forward to some Scouse banter.”

Warm-up aside, the actress and comedian’s previous forays on the Liverpool stage include Donna in Mamma Mia! at the then Echo Arena, Vivienne Franzmann's Mogadishu at the Playhouse and, back in 2013, playing Violet Newstead in 9 to 5 at Lime Street.

Rocky Horror is a show which keeps calling her back however, and she describes it as “a sort of unofficial job share between me and a few others”.

While Liverpool's own Leanne Campbell took on Narrator duties when the rolling UK tour spent Christmas at the Playhouse in 2024, Clune is still notable as one of very few other women who have played the role, which can add a different dynamic to proceedings.

“They (the audience) have to sometimes shout out things that are gender specific and normally for a male narrator,” she says. “And sometimes they do still shout those things out – about physiology. I’ll say: ‘I’m not sure if you’ve actually noticed but I’m not a man’ and then I take it elsewhere.

Above: Jackie Clune is playing the Narrator in The Rocky Horror Show. Top: Jason Donovan as Frank-N-Furter. Photo by David Freeman.

“I think the way I do it is kind of a slightly strict but cheeky schoolmistress type of character, and people seem to respond well to that.

“There’s an awful lot of male genitalia references in the audience shout outs, so I try and balance it out a bit and I love hearing how the women in the audience really enjoy that.”

One bonus of the ‘unofficial job share’ is the ability to juggle stints in the musical with other work both on stage and on screen.

Before Christmas she was in a well-received production of Hannah Doran’s The Meat Kings! (Inc) of Brooklyn Heights at the Park Theatre in London.

And after this latest run of Rocky Horror - in which she appears alongside Jason Donovan at the Empire - she is set to go to the RSC to play Julius Caesar in Phyllida Lloyd’s ground-breaking version of Shakespeare’s historical tragedy opposite Dame Harriet Walter as Brutus.

“Which is a bit different,” Clune says wryly.

“It’s a really fantastic production,” she adds. “We’re taking it to different schools around the UK and then to The Other Place in November which is brilliant.

"I think Phyllida Lloyd and Harriet Walter very much feel that, that it needs to take culture to kids who wouldn’t normally get to experience it, and hopefully empower them to feel like they’re allowed into the world of the arts as well.

Above: Doing the Time Warp again...the cast of Rocky Horror.

“It’s something that’s very passionate about. I’m currently Equity vice-president and we do a lot of work around access to arts training, and access to culture for people from different socio-economic groups. And I think it’s something this country struggles with.

“We don’t value our arts output enough, it actually shouldn’t be funding, it should be investment – it’s a big part of the economy and it’s a very important part of our output globally. We’re globally respected for our arts, and they should be putting more into it and recognising it really as a big part of the GDP.”

Before that though she’s wrangling audiences at Rocky Horror which also attracts a varied cross-section of people, including those who might not regularly set foot inside a theatre but love the musical's almost adult panto vibe.

“I call it kinky church!” Clune laughs. “It is a bit like panto with the audience, and we get sold out houses wherever we go, we get a return audience, it’s like a cult thing. And I can only hope those people might think ‘that was a fun night out, maybe I’ll come and see THAT show that’s on next week, or next month’.”

The Rocky Horror Show comes to the Liverpool Empire from May 4-9. Tickets HERE