Tonight, Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales have promised “to serve up a night of entertainment like no other”. As we enter the theatre, we’re greeted by a concierge, who hands us a key and invites us into Room 29. On stage there’s a bed, a reading desk and a rotary dial phone. “Help yourself to pretzels,” Jarvis murmurs as he checks in, ambling on stage with a battered, vintage suitcase.
Inspired by his stay in a room with a baby grand piano at Hollywood’s decadent Chateau Marmont hotel, Room 29 sees Cocker exploring – not for the first time – the allure of Hollywood and the fantasies it creates.

It means tonight’s show is less a gig and more an immersive cinematic experience; Hollywood via Hallam. The mise en scene is impeccable. Drinks are served on stage. Bellboys arrive. Jarvis orders a string quartet through room service.
Everyone is in character, too. Gonzales, in his trademark silk dressing gown, is the piano virtuoso, his ghostly cabaret providing an elegant accompaniment as Jarvis strikes his familiar poses and tells sardonic stories about the room’s previous occupants, such as Howard Hughes and Jean Harlow.

If these walls could talk, it seems, they would have a Sheffield accent and tell lascivious tales about actors doing drugs on the baby grand. Jarvis even does his best Howard Hughes impression, picking a woman out of the audience for her screen test.
The heart of the piece soon emerges: the idea of escape – into the movies, into the TV screen. At one point, Jarvis appears singing inside a TV before reappearing to serenade the audience, admitting the small screen didn’t match his big expectations. Hollywood and Room 29 may be places where you can you leave yourself behind, but the illusion always has to come to an end eventually. And, after they’ve covered Leonard Cohen’s Paper Thin Hotel and the theatre lights come up, Jarvis reminds us: “If you’re not out of your room by 11 o’clock we will have to charge you extra.”