Spy: Richard O'Brien celebrates Rocky Horror anniversary

Richard O'Brien. Photo / Norrie Montgomery

Richard O'Brien is getting set to do the Time Warp again.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month. And O'Brien - who wrote, acted in and directed the cult classic - has signed on as the narrator of a special two-hour performance of the show at London's Playhouse Theatre. The show will be broadcast on BBC America.

The network is one of many marking the movie's 40th anniversary. This week, members of the original cast, including Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon Barry Bostwick, Meat Loaf and Patricia Quinn, filmed a special for NBC.

As fans of the movie prepare to celebrate the milestone, O'Brien is starring on Kiwi TV screens as the host of TV One's new show The DNA Detectives, which premieres on Wednesday.

The show takes some of New Zealand's most-loved celebrities on a global search for their ancestors.

When O'Brien was approached by producers to host the series, he didn't hesitate to say yes.

"I only take on jobs that appeal to me on a personal level," he told Spy. And The DNA Detectives truly fitted that bill.

"The 'out of Africa' theory has always held a fascination for me," he said.

"The great journey as homo sapiens slowly made their way around the globe is both remarkable and intriguing. The fact that we were able to share DNA with neanderthal man is a further proof of our evolutionary origins and raises even more questions for us to attempt to answer."

The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

O'Brien spends time with the celebrities before they embark on their quests, a list that includes former Shortland Street star Amanda Billing.

She told Spy it had been a career highlight working with O'Brien. "The Rocky Horror Picture Show was one of the first, ahem, 'grown-up' films I remember seeing. I was just a kid so a lot of the 'adult' content went completely over my head," she said.

"But I loved every lunatic inside that house/space ship and fell for Tim Curry and Richard O'Brien. Little did I know that about 30 years later I'd be having a yarn about it all with the creator himself and getting a bashful selfie."