How’d You Do…

Occasional Albums Thing 088 - “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” Original Cast Recording

I don’t exactly recall how I first became a fan of Richard O’Brien’s “Rocky Horror Show”. I think is was when Deb (my wife if you didn’t already know) was working at Hamley’s, the toy shop in Birmingham, and some people she worked with there went to see it at the theatre, and I tagged along. I loved it and seem to remember that in one of he productions I saw, Jason Donovan played the role of Frank-N-Furter, a role made famous, when the play was filmed as “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, by the man who had starred in the original London stage show, Tim Curry.

“The Rocky Horror Show” was written by Richard O’Brien, who is possibly known to most people as the bald guy who presented Channel 4’s game show “The Crystal Maze”. O’Brien was a fan of Sci-Fi, horror B-movies of the 40’s and 50’s, Steve Reeves muscle films and 50’s Rock & Roll. He combined all of these influences into a musical that told the story of a newly engaged couple, Brad Majors and Janet Weiss (played in the movie by Susan Sarandon !), who get caught in a storm and suffer a flat tyre. They are forced to walk toward a nearby mansion in search of a phone and end up at the home of a mad transvestite scientist from the planet Transylvania, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, who is about to unveil his new creation, Rocky, a sort of Frankenstein-type monster in the form of an artificially made, fully grown, physically perfect body builder with blonde hair and a tan. They meet Frank-N-Furter’s “staff”, hunchback butler Riff Raff (played by O’Brien), his sister and maid Magenta and “groupie” Columbia.

After many shenanigans Riff Raff and Magenta announce the fun and games are all over and they are taking Frank-N-Furter back to heir home planet of Transylvania. They kill Columbia, Frank-N-Furter and Rocky before ordering Brad, Janet and others to leave the mansion and blasting off back home. All this madness is set to a set of songs that range from actually pretty darn good to others that are, honestly, a bit crap but all fit to serve the story in the show.

Of the good songs the best known would be “The Time Warp”, a dance number from outta space. After that “Over At The Frankenstein Place” is a fabulous showtune, Frank-N-Furter’s intro song “Sweet Transvestite” is a Glam Rock masterpiece and Frank’s plea for mercy toward the end, “I’m Going Home”, is great and works as a standalone song in it’s own right. The whole show is topped and tailed by its rather fabby “theme tune”, “Science Fiction, Double Feature”.

If you’ve been to see “…Rocky Horror..”, either in a theatre or at the cinema you’ll know, and if you’ve haven’t you should know, that audience members dress up as characters in the show and there is an entire audience participation “script” of lines and actions that run along with the show (have a look on YouTube). “The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show” is a rollicking good night out and I commend it to the house.

Sweet Transvestite - https://youtu.be/JWoYy4Ah81s?si=6IG9qs0lD1DUJbGd