Let's do the time warp

By GREG DIXON

Riff raff has clearly risen late. It's 8am London time, and as Richard O'Brien answers his phone he's only just pulling back the drapes. "Ooh look," he coos as if I might see, "there's a day out there."

He's waiting - no doubt in antici ... pation - for a nice cup of tea to arrive. But we can begin: he's happy to talk for as long as I want about some minor rock musical he wrote and starred in (as Riff Raff the butler) nearly 30 years ago. A little thing called The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

"It is quite astonishing, isn't it," he begins, employing a favourite word. "But even the first five weeks were quite astonishing because I never thought anyone would want to put it on. It was a fringe theatre event. I thought after the five weeks were up I'd be looking for another job."

Instead, of course, O'Brien had a hit. His only hit, as it turns out. After debuting at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1973, his horror show's success led to it being filmed in 1975.

Its stage production moved three times in the space of six years to larger and larger theatres, ending up in London's West End in 1979.

Nearly three decades on, Frank'n'Furter, Brad, Janet, Rocky and the rest have been seen by more than 20 million people. It is, he tells me, the most-produced musical in Europe.

And from this week, the Auckland Theatre Company will give local audiences another chance to don fishnets and suspenders, throw toast, squirt water pistols and do The Time Warp during a two-city season in Auckland and Wellington.

But back in 1973 such success - and Rocky must define the phrase "cult hit" - was, if not beyond O'Brien's imagination, something he wouldn't allow himself to contemplate.

"I was strangely dispassionate about it all at the time. I think perhaps that was some kind of protective survival skill kicking in. I went into that mode for about five or six years. And then I started to think, 'Well I did actually write this and it is kind of fantastic and maybe now I can afford to enjoy it a little more'.

"But I don't like tempting providence, you know. Once you do, that's hubris and the gods are very whimsical. I think they do tend to say, 'He's a little too happy today, let's f*** him up'."

The man known to his mother as Richard Timothy Smith was born 60 years ago this year in Cheltenham and he certainly sounds - apart from his quite astonishing laugh - like a middle-class English gent what's done all right.

Yet he counts himself as a New Zealander, though he lived here only a dozen years. His parents moved the family from England to a farm near Tauranga in 1952 before O'Brien decided he was no cocky and returned to Britain at age 22.

But being a New Zealander seems to bring him satisfaction as well as providing a hobby horse of sorts.

"I do [think of myself as a New Zealander], although I really have no right to. I think it gives me comfort because all my immediate family are there.

"And of course I always fight for the rights of the Australasian for their entry into Britain. I think it's shocking that Australia and New Zealand should support Britain in two world wars without conscription and so many die and then just get shat on in such an incredible way."

They're ungrateful, I add helpfully.

"They bloody are, mate. It's political expediency. It pisses me off."

And yet Britain is where this Kiwi has made his home and work since 1964, first in a series of dead-end jobs and eventually in acting and writing.

His first showbiz work was as a horse-riding (a skill he learned on the farm) film stuntman in the likes of Casino Royale before his big acting break in 1969, when he joined a touring cast of Hair.

It was while he was out of work in 1972 - "unemployment's a rather good spur to creative endeavours" - that what became Rocky began to form.

Someone was taking good drugs, then?

"You're a Murdoch journalist aren't you?" he says, emitting his infectious hoot. "Yes, I think 60s culture was around - you can't deny it. But really it was from my love of B-movies. They were my favourites on television in those days. Late at night, some dreadful film from the 50s would come with awful spooky music and bad acting and I used to love it so much, the cornyness of it all.

"And rock'n'roll I've always loved. It seemed just perfect to put all those kind of 50s populist themes together and form my own story out of it, which is loosely based on all the other stories put together."

While rehearsing Sam Shepard's play Unseen Hand at the Royal Court, he cornered its director Jim Sharman and pitched his idea. After hearing a few songs, Sharman said yes. O'Brien came up with another couple of tunes and another five pages of dialogue and by the end of the week Rocky was up and off camping.

"It really was very nice because it really was very organic. We were having fun basically, like children had put it together. I think part of that naivety, that simple joy and honesty, translated itself through to the audience with the play. I think that's part of its success."

There was no conscious attempt to shock or provoke audiences. It was comedy, O'Brien says, with characters punters had seen before in one way or another.

"But having a transsexual upped the stakes a little, that was all, and made it a bit more dangerous."

In retrospect, O'Brien sees Rocky as a retelling of the Fall with Brad and Janet as Adam and Eve, and Frank'N'Furter the serpent.

"You think you've been original, we all do that, we think we've been original and then we find that somebody else said it - generally a Greek actually, about 2000 years ago.

"But I think that really is a part of its longevity. I think it's a fairy tale.

"And fairy tales are reread to generation after generation and sometimes to each generation several times before they grow out of them."

Rocky has made O'Brien, former "young trannie" and divorced father of three, a buck or two as well. While he doesn't know - or won't say - how much, it has provided him with an income, regardless of the highs and lows of his career since.

"I think if I'd had a lot of money at the one time, I think I would have probably fallen by the wayside. I don't know whether I would have been able to handle that. But having it come in on a slow, monthly basis, like a pension fund, it's meant I've been able to budget ... put the children through school and all that kind of stuff."

And buy property. He has a London house and flat, an apartment in Reading and has just given his ex-wife a nice big Edwardian house in the country.

"I think that suggests I'm in a fairly stable financial state."

Something the rest of his career would have struggled to provide. His work since Rocky, while it has been steady and involved hosting a TV game show and appearing in films such as Spice World and Dark City, has included his share of bad reviews and flops, including the Rocky sequel, Shock Treatment, and Top People, a West End production that tanked after three days. ("Some plays are so bad they defy the critical act," wrote the Guardian's distinguished theatre critic, Michael Billington.)

Which perhaps explains his attitude to the business - one that doubles as good advice for aspiring actors.

"I'm very happy for people who get excited about success and excited about being cast in something or other. And it still happens. I still know lots of luvvies in the business.

"I've just played the Child Catcher in Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang at the Palladium. I wanted to do it - that's the sort of role that's perfect for me. But people in the business were coming up and saying [he assumes a luvvie voice], 'Oh congratulations'. I think, 'Why congratulations?' Why does everyone get so excited? It's a job. You don't turn around to your plumber and say, 'Congratulations for getting that job at Number 3, Acacia Avenue, and putting in the washing machine'. It's just a job."

I offer him congratulations on 30 years of Rocky anyway.

"Yes, 30 years is beyond, isn't it?"

Indeed. Now Rocky really is doing a time warp.

* The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Sky City Theatre, from Friday until December 14. Richard O'Brien will attend the Kevin Smith gala performance on Saturday.