Jason Donovan tells fans what to expect from The Rocky Horror Show at Sheffield Lyceum Theatre

Jason Donovan is enjoying a much anticipated return to one of his most famous roles playing Frank-N-Furter in Richard O’Brien’s anarchic musical, The Rocky Horror Show. So, the question has to be, why?

“In a nutshell,” he says, “I’m a fan. I love the show; I love the music; I love the character. I was touring my own show about five years ago and included 'Sweet Transvestite’ from Rocky as a key moment in my musical career. It went down a storm.”

He subsequently emailed producer Howard Panter saying that he’d read there was to be a 50th anniversary production of Rocky Horror and he’d love to be involved. And so it came to pass: first in Sydney and Melbourne and now, from mid-August, via an extensive UK tour.

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The Rocky Horror Show is a musical with music, lyrics and book by Richard O'Brien. A humorous tribute to various B movies associated with the sciencefiction and horror genres from the 1930s to the early 1960s, the musical tells the story of a newly engaged, clean-cut couple getting caught in a storm and coming to the home of a mad transvestite scientist, Dr Frank-N-Furter, unveiling his new creation, Rocky, a Frankenstein-style monster in the form of an artificially-made, fully-grown, physically perfect muscle man complete with blond hair and a tan.

The show was produced and directed by Jim Sharman. The original London production premièred at the Royal Court Theatre (Upstairs) on June, 19 in 1973. It later moved to several other locations in London and closed on September 13 in 1980. The show ran for a total of 2,960 performances. On the 50th anniversary of the musical in 2023, it is said the production had been performed in 20 different languages and seen by 30 million people globally.

He's the same performer but how does Jason feel about tackling the role over 25 years later? “I don’t feel uncomfortable, playing Frank at 56 – and, of course, I have personal reasons for being grateful to the show.”

The stage manager on that late 90s touring production was a young woman called Angela Malloch. “I’d be backstage waiting to go on,” recalls Jason, “and I’d get chatting to Ange.” The blossoming friendship turned into romance but the relationship hit the buffers.

Shortly afterwards, Angela found out she was pregnant. It was ultimatum time. “If the relationship had any chance of working, she told me, and if I was going to have any involvement in the life of our child, I would have to give up the self-indulgent hedonistic lifestyle of the 90s and take greater control of my life. And I did. It's something that happened gradually rather than immediately. “You either seize your opportunities or you don’t”. But, in the end, he says, you’ve got to want to change. “Elton John said it and it’s true: nobody can do it for you.”

It was a major turning point in his life and the beginning of a relationship – the couple finally married in 2008 – that has stood him in good stead from that day to this. The couple have three children: Jemma is 24 and an actress; 23-year-old Zac is a TV producer in Australia and Molly, 13, is still at school.

In the meantime, their father has graduated from small-screen fame as Scott in the long-running Australian soap, Neighbours, to chart-topping pop stardom and now, among much else, as a stalwart of musical and straight theatre in a diverse number of productions.

He played Joseph in the original production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (returning as Pharaoh in the 2019 revival and subsequently on tour). He was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as eccentric inventor Caractacus Potts, has had two stabs at playing drag artist Mitzi in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, he also played music mogul Sam Phillips in Million Dollar Quartet, the demon barber of

Fleet Street himself in Sweeney Todd and Lionel Logue in The King’s Speech.

But it is Dr Frank-N-Furter who occupies a special place in his heart. “One of the reasons I love Rocky is because it’s a short show.” And nor is he joking.

“It says everything it needs to say and nothing more. There’s no unnecessary padding. It means nobody gets bored and you leave them wanting more.”

The Rocky Horror Show will be at Sheffield Lyceum Theatre from Monday, November 25 until Saturday, November 30. You can find out more and buy tickets here.

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