Richard O'Brien returns to Rocky Horror Show for West End run

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/jul/31/richard-obrien-returns-rocky-horror-show-west-end

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Richard O’Brien, the creator of The Rocky Horror Show, is returning to the show as its narrator, the first time that he has appeared in the musical in the UK for more than 20 years.

Rocky Horror, a musical about an innocent couple, Brad and Janet, who come across an unhinged transvestite scientist who has created a handsome, muscled monster, began life with a limited run at London’s Royal Court theatre in 1973. It became a film in 1975 and the stage tour around the world has hardly stopped since.

“I love the show for so many reasons,” said O’Brien from his home in New Zealand. “No one expected it to have any more life than the five-week run. It went on, and then the years went on.

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“The noise at the end of Rocky is wonderful – it is empowering and exhilarating at the same time it is quite joyous.”

The stage production is coming back to London’s West End, at the Playhouse theatre, for 11 performances in September before a UK tour later in the year. O’Brien has recently played the narrator in New Zealand and Australia, and had a blast, he said.

O’Brien, who played Riff Raff in the original production and film, will for ever be associated with Rocky Horror, but it has never been a curse. “It’s gender issues which have dominated my life,” he said.

He identifies himself as transgender. “We get dealt cards when we’re born, we don’t ask for them: tall, short, blond-haired, brown-haired, blue-eyed, brown-eyed, male, female. We don’t ask for them. Society has decided there are hard and fast rules, we’re hardwired male or female – and I don’t think it’s true, I think we’re all over the fucking place.”