On Seeing Rocky Horror On New Year’s Eve!

 Tonight I went to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show at my local cinema, the Classic, as an annual New Year’s Eve event. I’m not one to wear costumes, but when I have worn them, at SF cons, I made my own. Tonight, those people in costume I met had bought them online. It was still fun to watch the costume parade. 

We received a glass of sparkling wine on arrival, a nice way to celebrate New Year’s Eve, if not really connected with the film. They also gave us a goodie bag of items to use in the show, eg a newspaper to cover our heads while being sprayed with “rain” early in the film, confetti to throw when the bride and groom were coming out of the church at the beginning. I wouldn’t want to be the cinema staff having to clean up afterwards, I can only hope they got paid extra.

There’s quite a cast. Richard O’Brien, who played Riff Raff, is the show’s composer and lyricist, who also co-wrote the film script and I’m assuming he did the script for the original show, which I’ve seen a few times. I’ve seen him also in Robin Of Sherwood, as an evil sorcerer, and in Flash Gordon, as one of Prince Barin’s men.

Tim Curry, who played Frank N Furter, was also, as far as I know, the Pirate King who made the role sexy, in The Pirates Of Penzance,  but I’ve only seen a snippet when it was performed at the Royal Command Performance. My favourite of his roles was Shakespeare in The Life Of Shakespeare. He absolutely was Shakespeare. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find it again. 

Patricia Quinn, who played Magenta, was in I, Claudius, as one of Claudius’s dreadful sisters.

I think there was a production of the stage show with Richard O’Brien, on YouTube, if it hasn’t been taken down. It’s worth checking out. 

Any fans out there?