For those without such prior knowledge, Return to the Forbidden Planet is a schlocky sci-fi B-movie version of The Tempest, complete with a rock’n’roll jukebox soundtrack. Not only that, there’s video narration by Brian May. cod-Shakespearean dialogue and any number of quotations lifted from other plays by the Bard and repurposed to intergalactic effect. So a routine space mission led by Captain Tempest gets diverted to a mysterious rock called D’Illyria (“what planet, friends, is this…”) after getting caught in a meteor storm (“goodness, gracious, great balls of fire…”) where they meet the mad Doctor Prospero, his robot servant Ariel and his innocent daughter Miranda.
From thence, a typically Shakespearean tangle of all-consuming love, misplaced affections and space monsters spills forth with not a single opportunity to shoehorn in a song missed – when Miranda falls for the Captain, she laments being ‘A Teenager in Love’; when the feisty Science Officer faces misogyny onboard the ship, only ‘It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World’ can express how she feels, etc etc. With a hugely talented actor-musician ensemble - some playing up to 8 instruments - delivering the music, it can be a thrilling piece of theatre to behold (especially to as impressionable a teenage mind as was mine).
Equally though, there are longueurs in writer, creator and director Bob Carlton’s production when he lets the energy slip too much, the comic zest giving way to a somewhat bloated feel wherein trimming a chorus or two or a laboured quote or three might sharpen up the whole affair. For when it is funny, it’s very entertaining – Mark Newnham’s hapless Cookie is a scene-stealing delight, his exit through the airlock a definite comic highlight, Jonathan Markwood’s crazy eyes as Doctor Prospero are to die for, Steve Simmonds is an endlessly reassuring presence as the reliable Bosun, and Christine Holman’s Science Officer-with-a-past also impresses.
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