The Richard O'Brien Crusade

With many many thanks to the denizens of the Richard O'Brien Tightcircle (and speaking of which, why not join up and have some mail you actually wouldn't MIND reading?), Ruth Fink-Winter and her sources as well, we've finally managed to procure something to show you concerning CCBB. The stage musical based on the book by Ian Fleming (Yeah, the James Bond guy...) with songs by the Sherman Brothers has hit the stage in London's West End. The Palladium to be exact, and you can pick up tickets if you'll be in the area straight from the Official website, which you can handily find by clicking here. You can also take a peek at the articles section for a number of reviews.

Naturally, we're featuring it because Richard is in the production... somewhat unsurprisingly, he appears as the villainous Child Catcher, the character responsible for giving many many people (myself included) nightmares as a young child.

The website now has some more information besides the nifty little Flash(r) animations and the title song (from the film) played ad nauseum. It also has a feature where the actress who portrays Baroness Bomburst details her thoughts in a diary. Look for a mention of Richard's designing skills in her wrap-up of week one. :)

The Sunday Times in the UK also printed a story in their most recent (3/24/02) edition of their Culture section, along with a few sneak peeks of Richard in full Child Catcher costume.

Here's what they had to say about our boy:

.."The Shermans have resurrected or newly minted several songs for the show, including one for the demonic Child Catcher, the leering villain of the piece who must have single-handedly inspired more children’s nightmares over the years than any other film character. “It’s a fun, scary song, and oh is it nasty,” says Sherman with relish. “It’s called Kiddy-Widdy-Winkies. I’m telling you, it’ll get the kids scared.”

The Child Catcher is a role that the actor Richard O’Brien was born to play, and — to givehim credit — he knows it. “My agent phoned up and said: ‘Are you interested in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?’” he recalls. “My first question was: ‘Are we talking about the Child Catcher?’ They said yes, so I said: ‘Yeah, I’ll crawl over broken glass.’”

In fact, my own children ask me now, ‘Go on, daddy, pull that face.’ And as soon as I do it... ” (O’Brien metamorphoses in front of me into the evil twin of the Roswell alien) “...they go: ‘No, stop, please stop, daddy!’ So then you say: ‘Okay, it’s fine, everything’s all right, darling.’ And as soon as they’ve recovered, they say: ‘Oh, do it again, please, daddy ... ’"

Even when he’s not in character, sitting next to O’Brien is just a little scary. And with Brian Blessed (who plays Baron Bomburst) on the other side, it feels a bit like being sandwiched between a friendly lizard and a hyperactive bison.

“With me, the emotions are very close to the surface,” the lizard tells me, in a break between songs. “I can go from happy to bleak just like that.” (He snaps his long fingers.) “Mother Teresa to Freddy Krueger in five seconds.”

Does he think the children in the audience will be scared? “Yeah. I don’t have to work too hard to do that,” he drawls.

UPDATE: Richard's run with CCBB has sadly come to an end. From all sources I have heard, the poor bloke who's taking the part after him certainly has his work cut out for him.