When Seann Miley Moore’s Hedwig jumps off the stage and roams the room, which they do more than once, it feels like a release of barely contained volcanic energy and looks like a hunger for close personal contact.

Watch out people. Hedwig is on the prowl and she is pumped.

Seann Miley Moore in Hedwig & the Angry Inch. Photo © Shane Reid

Hedwig’s story is one of survival in John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask’s passionately admired cult musical. It’s also one of extraordinary gallantry in the face of enemy fire. Of declaring acceptance of and pride in one’s place on this earth.

For that state of grace to be achieved Hedwig – a self-described “internationally ignored” rock singer – needs an audience. She and her band The Angry Inch might not be on the A-list circuit but they can put on a show, one that here resembles nothing less than a raucous, sweaty, gender-bending revivalist meeting. It’s where Hedwig can strip herself bare, almost literally.

She’s had a lot to put up with. The erstwhile “slip of a girly-boy”, name of Hansel, was born into a crappy life in East...