Richard O’brien does the Time Warp again...at 81!
ROCKY HORROR Show creator Richard O’brien’s is set to be astounding audiences again at 81.
As the stage version of the show prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary, its co-writer – who played butler Riff Raff in the film adaptation – is delighted to see it go from strength to strength.
And although half a century ago its cross-dressing, bisexual characters were risqué, changing times mean that today it is almost a family show.
A new version of the show, viewed by 30 million people, opens in Australia and O’brien is playing his part.
He said: “I’m top and tailing the show, doing the opening narrator’s speech and the final narrator’s speech, and that’s it really. Beat the drum and wave the flag for it I guess.”
The show remains seemingly unstoppable. It’s also allowed Cheltenham-born O’brien, who wrote much of its music and lyrics, to be young-at-heart, now with his third wife, Sabrina, 35 years his junior.
He’s past caring about his performance as an actor, too.
“The fear of forgetting the lines is there. I can’t pretend that it isn’t. But it doesn’t really matter, you see. If I do, what are they going to do – fire me?”
Rocky Horror was a major hit globally, with O’brien’s memorable songs at the core of its success.
Among them was The Time Warp whose simple dance instructions – “It’s just a jump to the left” – were performed up and down the aisles of countless theatres and cinemas.
The musical was a pastiche, he says, of B-horror movies which he’d watched. This inspired opening number Science Fiction Double Feature.
He combined this new song with others “in a drawer” and it began to take shape into a proper musical. Or did it?
O’brien said: “I don’t know whether I ever had that much confidence. I knew I was writing something that was pleasing me and making me laugh.
“I remember when we opened at the Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court and then we had a three-week break to move the show to the nearby classic cinema. And on the opening night there, as we were leaving, Michael White, our producer, said, ‘I think we’ve got a hit, Richard’.”
But O’brien “didn’t want to get too excited about things”. He said: “It’s a bit like that moment in a soap opera when somebody says, ‘You know darling, I’ve never been so happy in my entire life’.you know in the next episode, they’re going to
step in front of a bus!” Rocky Horror had risqué content but with the end of the Lord Chamberlain’s theatre censorship years before, the cast went for it, he says.
“Nobody’s saying ‘You can’t say that. You can’t do that’.we did whatever we did, as long as we knew it was entertaining. There’s a certain amount of puerility in the show. But it’s knowingly placed. And it’s only for fun and we weren’t making any big statements for the show. It really was a piece of entertainment.”
Rocky Horror was also non-binary, 40 years ahead of the phrase entering the common lexicon. “People have turned it into something for their own advantages and their own point of view. Lots and lots
of people have said it allowed them to come out or it allowed them not to be ashamed of what they were, by default, you know, gay or transgendered or anything. So it has had an uplifting effect for many people, which is joyous.
“It’s almost a family show nowadays.” Fox Studios adapted it for screen as the Rocky Horror Picture Show. But O’brien revealed that one star turn, singer Meatloaf, was initially unconvinced.
“He just didn’t like the content of the show,” said O’brien. “And he certainly didn’t want to put on the fishnets in the wheelchair to play Dr Scott.
“But once he got his first laugh, and he was being funny and comedic and getting a laugh, his whole attitude to the show changed.” It wasn’t an immediate hit for the struggling Fox Studios, however.
“They didn’t want us to make the movie in the end. Although they had green lit the project, there was a change in studio head. Alan Ladd Jr didn’t like the content and would have canned it if he could but we’d gone a bit too far with the contracts. He had to bite the bullet and get on with it.
“In the end it saved the bacon of 20th Century Fox. Rocky Horror saved them for two years as it was a continual player.
“It’s the longest running movie in cinema history.”
O’brien paid tribute to its main star. “Tim Curry who I met during Hair, raised the bar on that performance. It’s absolutely marvellous.”
He admits he’s enjoyed the success of the show ever since. “It would be perverse to let something like that be a stumbling block or some kind of restraint in your life. Enjoy it, and get some pleasure out of it. Don’t beat yourself up about it!”
“Once it started to be successful I had the comfort of something to fall back on.”
O’brien, once estimated to be worth £190million, doesn’t keep any memorabilia from the show, such as play bills or scripts. “I’m not somebody that keeps mementos actually, I’m really not into it. Yesterday’s gone, tomorrow’s speculation.
“I live in the present and enjoy it. I’m not one that needs to be reassured and have all these things from my past around to... well, actually, it’s generally speaking to impress other people I think most of the time. It doesn’t interest me.”
He will come to London for the 50th anniversary show on May 25, starring Ore Oduba as Brad. Otherwise it’s back soon to his quiet life in New Zealand.
“It’s idyllic in a way. We live down a dead-end street. We look out from our front porch across the water. It’s not paradise but demi-paradise.”
The Rocky Horror Show tours the UK until October 2023. For tickets visit rockyhorror.co.uk