LET'S DO THE TIME WARP (AGAIN)

Chris Hallam explores the longevity of The Rocky Horror Show

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On what has already been a very unusual night, Brad and Janet can only recoil in horror as the hunched, depraved figure standing before them starts to sing. “It’s astounding,” the servant, Riff Raff, begins. “Time is fleeting. Madness takes its toll...” “But listen closely, not for very much longer,” his scarcely less weird sister, Magenta adds in her rich Transylvanian accent. Riff Raff goes on: “I've got to keep control...”

So begins Time Warp, perhaps the most famous song from The Rocky Horror Show. Over the past half century, it has been estimated that the show – which also includes the songs Sweet Transvestite, Dammit Janet, and I Can Make You a Man - has been performed in 20 different languages and seen by 30 million people globally. It has become a massive pop culture phenomenon with many audiences often attending stage productions or showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show film fully dressed in the often sexually provocative garb of their favourite characters and actively shouting lines and responses at certain points in the story.

None of that would have been possible without the one man who played the original Riff Raff: Richard O’Brien. Born in Cheltenham in 1942, O’Brien had returned to the UK in 1964 after spending much of his early life in New Zealand. The next decade saw him working as a stuntman on Carry On Cowboy (1965) and appearing on the West End stage in productions of Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar.

It was a difficult time. “I always felt that I was living in no man’s land,” he said later. “I never felt that I belonged anywhere.” He wasn't just talking about physical geography. In 2009, he opened up publicly about his lifelong confusion over his gender identity. Today, he considers himself to be 70% male and 30% female but still uses male he/him/his pronouns. His struggle is reflected in many of the themes of his most famous work.