Rocky Horror

From the New Statesmen

At the Theatre Upstairs the attendants wear shiny, leering masks, preparing us for shudders to come, and The Rocky Horror Show itself begins with a song from a cigarette girl in praise of the 'late-night double-feature picture show'.

Then a narrator appears, barking brusque, novelettish cliches and inviting us to follow the perils (and laugh at the prudish bewilderment) of all-American Brad and Janet as they fall into the painted hands of Dr. Frank-n-Furter, a mad necromancer who wears beads and corsets and comes from 'Transexxual Transylvania'.

His latest creation, a blond he-man, swaggers about with a hand mirror, primping his hair; an earlier one appears from a Coca-Cola machine to do a parody of Elvis Presley; and Frank-n-Furter himself manages to seduce both Brad and Janet before being pulverized by intergalactic spacemen in golden armour.

The intention, of course, is to celebrate such freakish of pop culture as Hammer films, Alice Cooper, and the sci-fi of Michael Moorcock; and the result has tremendous invention, energy and glee, right up to a final paean to bisexuality, with an exotically clad cast hugging, singing and doing a dance called the Time Warp. The man responsible for book, lyrics, and music (and for playing a hunchbacked butler called Riff-Raff) is Richard O'Brien; a name to remember