“You see, you are fortunate for tonight is the night that my beautiful creature is destined to be BORN!” (announces FrankNfurter to Brad and Janet, unexpected guests at the castle that night.)
I could recite the entire Rocky Horror Picture Show, from opening to closing credits. It was my one true religion during my adolescent years and I believe it served me supremely well.
To those who don’t know the show, here’s a synopsis:
‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a quirky cult classic, musical comedy, horror film about a newly engaged couple, Brad and Janet, who seek help after their car breaks down and stumble upon a bizarre mansion. Inside, they meet the eccentric Dr. Frank-N-Furter from another planet, who is unveiling his latest creation—a buff, golden-haired man called Rocky. As the night unfolds, the couple gets drawn into the mansion's wild, unconventional world of music, science fiction, and liberation, challenging their perceptions of love, identity, and desire. It’s weird, fun, and totally unforgettable!’
It's all that, and it was PERFECT for me. Seventeen, self-obsessed and far too cool for skool, I did a handbrake-turn out of secondary school and fled the Norfolk flatlands for the metropolis that is Kings Lynn with its fine Polytechnic - ay caramba!! I was so desperate to break lose I swear I would have taken a free ticket to Anywhere (oh hang-on, I did. But not until I was nearly 19.) The down side of packing-up and flying-off at such a young age is that you have no tolerance for the unbridled toxic delights immediately available to you as a young adult. I soon became familiar with the purple vomit that fizzed out of my nostrils after too many ‘snake-bite and black’s’. At being lost, as well as found, inside great aromatic clouds of Red Leb. And, frequently being in search of my knickers, post-throes with whomever seemed most appealing whilst under the influence of the previous two substances.
I suspect that in my day (jeez!!) the easiest mainstream answer for ado’s like me, regarded neither remarkable nor dangerous, just ‘disruptive’, was to be signposted directly out into ‘the real world’ where we’d be expected to ‘sober up pretty quickly’. But actually, it just meant that we roamed the landscape in numbers, at liberty to piss-off the general public and suffer no particular consequences. And anyway, who wants to sober up to ‘the real world,’ nobody seems to be particularly happy with it! And, ‘the real world’ according to whom? I’ve always regarded that a pretty subjective inquiry…
I had very little guidance as a young person and there’s part of my adult-self that would love to take a seat in the Delorian, alongside Doc and Marty, and go Back To The Future. Back to 1988. I’m hanging around the ‘smell like teen-spirit’ college common room, on the look-out for ‘younger me’. Trying to fit-in by standing-out in my oversized, black, holey mohair jumper, 16-hole DM’s and whale-net tights. Pale skinned, black make-up, hair sprayed rigid, I’m sweating pheromones to attract my kin. There she is, ‘younger me’ eyeballing me as I pin up flyers about the upcoming drama group auditions. She stubs out her fag and starts heading over. Oh my god ‘younger me’ is terrifying. I get all flustered and manage to pin the sleeve of my mohair jumper to the pinboard along with a flyer. The ‘younger me’ spits out a huffy-half-smirk, but she’s interested, I can tell by the way she’s not asking me any questions, but she’s not going anywhere either. I believe I have her attention…..
And there we have it – future trajectory duly perverted! I ditch the course I’m on, go to Drama School, become a massive talent and devotee to the darlings of ‘all the world’s a stage.’ I still probably get messily inebriated, psycho-actively altered and royally screwed, but I might have felt a bit more ‘with my people’ even if they were a pool of sharks, rather than alone in the world and a fish out of water.
But who knows. It went the way it went because that’s the only way it ever goes, and I don’t regret a milli-moment.
And anyway, I had The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
And, as FrankNfurter would triumphantly declare in preparation of the unveiling of his ‘creature‘, Rocky “in just seven days…..I can make you a ma-a-a-a-annnn” (Oh god! give me a minute, I’ve just embodied Frank, I’m going to have to do justice to the number).
(ok, I’m back in the room) Now, what you need to understand about the Rocky Horror Picture Show is that what’s required is for you to truly let go and live outrageously inside the show. Pick a character (I was usually Magenta) and BE it, 100% until the ‘late night, double feature, picture show’ plays out.
Ok, you could show up as a spectator (like Brad and Janet found themselves to be at the beginning) but why would you (as Brad and Janet soon came to understand). Why wouldn’t you want to see what FrankNfurter was doing in his lab? To see what’s on the slab? And have you shiver, in antici…………pation! Because He made a man, with blond hair and a tan, who was good for relieving his tension
You are theatrically invited, with beckoning finger, to “give yourself over to absolute pleasure. Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh. Erotic nightmares, beyond any measure. And sensual daydreams to treasure forever. Can’t you just see it? oh, oh, oh…oh!”
Now some of you, who perhaps don’t know the show, could be thinking that it sounds like a ‘gateway’ performance that could encourage impressionable, unprincipled types into becoming full-blown social miscreants! But it’s not. And, it’s not just for those who crave a world inside which they can legitimately let-rip. It’s equally for the shy, socially awkward, sexually unsure, who maybe crave a world of face paint, costume and music to lubricate the shift from who they know themselves to be, to something else. It’s a positive and extremely inclusive band of crazies, that ‘jazz hands’ in the face of all the usual conscious and nonconscious discriminators, and unite in song, in suspenders, in irreverence for good, filthy fun.
Toward the end of the show there’s a calm, rather mesmerising refrain that underpins an overarching theme to this story “Don’t dream it. Be it. Don’t dream it. Be it” which is sage advice for those interested in the notion of freedom. Surrender. Surrender to the dream. Be the dream. Surrender to the show. Be the show. It’s a truly empowering way to be, even if only for a couple of hours along with all the other rocky-horrors.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show plays at cinemas, tours theatres and is probably available on Netflix, if you want to get messy at home with a RHPS party. Go on, let your hair down. All way down. Don’t dream it; be it. You won’t regret it!
https://rockyhorror.co.uk
https://rockyhorror.co.uk/virginsguide
https://www.thecapitoltheatre.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/RHS-Etiquette-Guide-2024.pdf
thanks to @bethkempton @SoulCirlce 's prompt for blowing the dust off my ageless inner-Magenta.
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