Lunch with Richard O’Brien

Time was fleeting at The Rocky Horror Show media call, so David Spicer asked instead if he could have lunch with the musical’s creator Richard O’Brien. The legendary writer and actor was in Australia (in fine form) for the premiere of the 40^th anniversary production.

We sat down in the courtyard of a posh Brisbane hotel and ordered refreshments.

Sitting with the 71 year old was his third wife (German born) Sabrina Graf, who was introduced to The Rocky Horror Show as a girl, when her father showed her the movie.

Now happily living in the Bay of Plenty in New Zealand, the couple had a spooky moment when they arrived in Queensland.

“We checked into a hotel which looked good on the internet. But there was no lock on the door – so we checked out,” he said.

It can be disturbing when you find yourself in a foreign lodging when you have a vivid imagination. Who knows, maybe a transvestite could end up in your bedroom.

Shaven head, without an ounce of fat on him, with pointy charismatic features Richard O’Brien resembles an elongated elf.

I ask him which role in the musical he most relates to. At first he groans at the question but then rises to the bait.

“I do like all of them. They are all the same person at war with themselves, people running around in my head.

“I was the boy next door, like Brad. Mothers used to love me. I was well dressed. Not bad looking. I used to have muscles too.”

He then flexed his impressive bicep and growled affectionately at Sabrina.

“ I would love to be the girl next door. Love to go to bed one night and wake up a girl.

“I was certainly the resentful Riff Raff bastard. I played on that part (in the motion picture) of my resentment to Tim Curry being beautiful and charismatic.”

What about Frank N Furter?

“Yes I’m tonnes of that.”

Does he ever dress in stockings and suspenders?

“I wear whatever I want. They are just clothes. If I want to wear a frock I will.

“From 1950, women were not allowed to wear trousers. That’s only 50 years ago. So women are cross dressing all the time.”

Last year Richard O’Brien went so far as to describe himself to the BBC as 70 percent man and 30 percent woman.

At the Brisbane media call he appeared a little more coy.

When Craig McLachlan, as Frank N Furter, resplendent in his high heels, and a finely sculptured Brendan Irving as Rocky draped their arms around him, he looked a little uncomfortable.

“I’m straight,” he said.

The three were re-united on stage during the curtain call on opening night.

Richard O’Brien bounded on wearing a white jacket with a striking print of a leopard on its back. He delighted the audience with a rousing rendition of ‘The Time Warp’ (which he hastens to add he has performed at weddings, parties and Bar Mitzvahs).

40 years after he penned the show Richard O’Brien is surprised at how popular it remains.

“It is puerile juvenilia. It doesn’t make sense but it works and that is delightful.”

It is also the dictionary definition of a cult following.

“They come with a generosity of spirit. For many in the audience the show doesn’t start when the curtain goes up. It starts at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. They get home from work, get in the bath, shave their legs, put the make-up on and have got themselves into a party state before they get here.

“The minute they come through the door (of the theatre) and see other people on the same sort of journey, you can feel the level of excitement in the audience.

“One man comes in dressed up as Frank N Furter and they go ape.”

New younger recruits are being inducted into the cult.

“I had a phone call from Matthew Freud, Elizabeth Murdoch’s husband, at one in the morning.

“He said, ‘Richard I just want to congratulate you about Rocky Horror. We’ve got one of these TV sets in the car and our children (aged 13 to 8), that’s all they want to watch.’

“And he said, ‘you know what the favourite song of my youngest is?’ And I said, ‘Sweet Transvestite?’ ‘I wish.’ ‘What?’  He said, ‘tacha tacha touch me.’ I said, ‘I am so sorry.’ He said, ‘that’s alright mate.’ ”

Richard O’Brien admits that The Rocky Horror Show was “based on my misspent youth, a puerile adolescent journey of rock ‘n’ roll and B Grade movies.

“It was a fringe theatre event. From the moment I thought of doing it to curtain up was just six months.

“If I was one of those legal firms and added up every hour I spent on it, I’d guess about three or four weeks all up.”

The musical premiered in London in 1973 in a 63 seat experimental theatre. It opened after just two previews.

The audience response prompted the producer Jim Sharman to transfer it to ever larger theatres where it continued for seven years. Recently BBC listeners nominated The Rocky Horror Show as eighth on a list of most essential musicals.

Broadway has been a harder nut to crack. The show ran for just 45 performances in 1975 and a revival in 2000 was also a disappointment.

To explain the hurdles faced in the US he mimics the accent of a Chicago taxi driver.

“I saw The Rocky Horror Show at the cinema for just ten bucks.”

They’ve since released the amateur rights in the US, where it is doing very well.

Germans on the other hand can’t get enough of it.

“Germany kept rock ‘n’ roll going during the Glam Rock period…they get it. Stocking and suspenders is also very Germany.”

Likewise in Australia and New Zealand the musical is ever popular.

Richard O’Brien played the narrator in the most recent kiwi revival.

He also became a New Zealand citizen a few years ago – but getting it was difficult.

Born in England, his family moved there to become sheep farmers when he was aged ten. His diet of B Grade science fiction horror movies was fed in the town of Hamilton, which has erected a statue in his honour.

He left for England when he was 22 and NZ Immigration officials baulked at his residency application because of his age and lack of a job.

A Facebook campaign was launched to make the man claimed as a New Zealander a bona fide one.

Now his German born wife Sabrina is delighted with the green surroundings of their hometown of Katikati.

Richard O’Brien proposed during a production of Oliver! in 2012. At the time he was playing Fagin for the Hamilton Operatic Society.

It was a role he had always wanted to play and notes that he sang it superbly and was especially keen to remove any traces of anti-Semitism from the role.

Our lunch conversation jumped to the left, then stepped to the right, as we grazed across a range of topics.

He decries ‘ low level racism’ that his antennae pick up in some of his fellow citizens.

He believes absolutely in Darwinism; that we all evolved from primordial soup.

He has little time for religion – “that a supreme being is interested in me is delusional. Why would he let a church fall down on worshippers? It is just man’s vanity,” he says, but concedes a lot of good comes from spirituality.

And what does he really think about Australians and New Zealanders?

Richard notes that some “have no sense of posh or occasion.” Whilst this can be frustrating it also means, he said, “on the bright side they are not intimidated by celebrity.”

His hamburger arrives and the svelte performer dutifully removes all the greasy bacon bits.

I thought it best to steer the conversation back to musical theatre. Has he ever attempted to write another one in the same style?

“Sometimes you can never top it. I have never attempted to.”

However he bemoans the lack of recognition for lyrics for The Stripper, another musical he wrote the in 1982, when it debuted at the Sydney Theatre Company. Based on a Carter Brown thriller, he had another go at it a few years ago.

Does he ever get tired of seeing The Rocky Horror Show?

“Never, as long as the audience laughs and it works then I am happy. There is a difference between this show and other pieces of theatre; a great majority of the audience know it. There is an agreement this is OK. There is no better show to do as a performer.”

And how does the current production brush up – with its set and design – from the UK touring season.

“I like the open happiness and clarity it brings to the show. It lets the air breath around her.“

Our lunch is over. Richard O’Brien is one of a kind.

Images: Richard O'Brien and David Spicer; Craig McLachlan, Richard O'Brien and Brendan Irving 3 (c) Shane O'Connor; Sabrina Graf with Richard in London at the premiere of Rocky in Wimbledon an Richard O'Brien checks out Stage Whispers.