Rocky Horror at Rio must go on
Protesters work around liquor license restriction
A group of subversive protesters are getting around the Rio Theatre’s new moratorium on movies by acting out next Friday’s midnight screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, complete with audio track, costumes and the regular screening’s “shadow cast.”
The cult movie — famous for its audience participation — screens every few months at the cinema, but when a new liquor licence condition was announced last Thursday the group that usually dances and sings in the front rows decided to jump on stage and continue with business as usual — minus the video on screen in back of them.
“You can’t show a film and drink, but you can do a performance,” said Tyler Nicol, a 26- year- old Simon Fraser University student and who will be playing both the role of Eddie, the ex- delivery boy and rival scientist Dr. Everett V. Scott.
“It’s going to be the exact same movie,” Nicol asserted. “It just kind of shows off how silly it is that we can’t show the movie and have the same experience.”
On Thursday, Rio owner Corinne Lea had to sign an extra condition on her liquor licence that forbids her from showing films or any type of cinematic screening.
The last film at the cinema will be The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo this Sunday.
The special “screening” of the musical about a couple that gets stranded at the castle of a bizarre doctor begins Friday, Jan. 27 at 11: 55 p. m.