Many of horror

The other night, I did something very unusual. I went to see a musical. Not just any musical, either, but the 40^th anniversary tour of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. As you might correctly assume, this wasn’t my idea, but I went along anyway, displaying the same sort of naivety as a Christian in ancient Rome visiting a lion show at the local arena.

It probably goes without saying that I would rather have been eaten by lions than witness what took place at the Kings Theatre over a two-hour, two-act performance. Frankly, I’d rather have been eaten by the people on stage, and they’d probably have been well up for that. It was easily the two campest hours I’ve experienced since I pitched a tent in Go Outdoors and read a book on campanology. I have absolutely no issue with other people enjoying such a spectacle, in much the same way that I have no problem with explorers trying to climb the Andes backwards wearing flip-flops, but to continue the campanology theme, transvestite theatre really doesn’t ring my bell.

What did impress me, as I sat in the upper circle surrounded by a tsunami of timewarping women, was the utter professionalism of the show. Every prop worked the way it was supposed to, the live band played exceptionally well (particularly the drummer), and even the more unexpected moments of audience interaction failed to throw the cast off their stride. As an accomplishment, this particular performance has to be judged an unqualified success. Even though I hated what I saw, I loved the efficiency of it all, and that is probably a much greater compliment than simply going home singing Damn It Janet and having no further opinion.

You could argue that because this is the Rocky Horror’s 40^th anniversary tour, the production team have had four decades to get things right, but since every show is slightly different, and every team of participants varies from one city to the next, that’s a bit of a red herring. This particular performance gathered together a cast of twelve, a band of similar size, riggers and lighting techs (I must salute the lighting operator who turned up for work wearing a Cannibal Corpse T-shirt), costumiers and make-up artists, producers and directors, before bringing everyone together for an exhausting one-week run, sometimes involving two shows a day. The chances are that some of the people involved in the performance I witnessed were labouring under a cold, or wondering if they’d left the gas on, or having relationship problems (let’s hope the actors’ personal lives run more smoothly than those of their stage personas). Yet they all pulled together so successfully that the audience departed happily gossiping about how that bloke from X Factor has got all buff, rather than discussing the bollock that escaped during a leg-crossing routine, or the bit where Riff Raff was electrocuted by a faulty antimatter gun.

It would be churlish in the extreme, therefore, for me to conclude by saying I hated the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and advising you not to go and see it. However, it is so not my cup of tea that it’s practically Bovril. There are only so many hairy stockinged legs a chap can take, before it’s time to put away the binoculars and flee into the night. Still, I extend my utmost respect and congratulations to anyone involved in Tuesday evening’s performance, and the three ladies who were in attendance with me absolutely loved it. Mission accomplished.