Linus O'Brien on The Rocky Horror Film Show: ‘Rocky has tangibly saved lives. It created a real sense of community'
First staged in a tiny upstairs space – with 60 seats in total – at the Theatre Royal in London in 1973, the bizarro, brilliant and singalong musical The Rocky Horror Show somehow evolved into a theatrical warhorse and midnight movie juggernaut.
Remarkably, Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror, a new documentary directed by Linus O'Brien, son of Richard O'Brien (who wrote the original stage show and starred as Riff Raff in the 1975 movie), is the first feature-length project to chronicle the musical's buoyant history.
'It's very strange,' says the director. 'A lot of people have commented on how weird it is that something like Rocky hasn't been given this kind of attention and on this scale before. I feel very privileged and lucky to be the one to do it, to be honest. I've known the story for so long. I've known my dad's personal journey. It was really a question of taking everything that I knew and making sure it got on camera.'
READ MORE
The Rocky Horror Picture Show follows a newly engaged couple, Brad and Janet (played by Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon), as they stumble upon a mysterious castle after their car breaks down. Inside, they meet Dr Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), a flamboyant, cross-dressing scientist, who unveils his latest creation: a muscular, artificially-made man named Rocky. As the night unfolds, the couple is drawn into Frank-N-Furter's riotous world of sexual liberation and showstopping musical numbers.
'You can put on your favourite album, pretty much anytime, and revisit it,' says O'Brien. 'That's another huge strength of Rocky. If the songs were only half as good as they are, we wouldn't be talking about it today. But the songs are as good as any other soundtrack that's ever been written. Obviously, I'm biased, but you can put it next to The Wizard of Oz and West Side Story, in my opinion.'
Whereas many lavish, starry West End productions have floundered, Rocky Horror logged some 3,000 productions on its first run and has endured for over five decades, outlasting many other pop culture trends. No other musical can compete with Rocky's global fan clubs, nor the shadow casts that re-enact its every move in real time.
O'Brien's new film brings together various fans, including Jack Black and Trixie Mattel, plus the original cast and creatives to recount the rollicking fall and rise of the scrappy, queer-favoured musical. We also encounter Tim Curry, whose outrageous turn as the intergalactic, polyamorous Frank-N-Furter is a huge part of its enduring cult appeal.
I would consider Star Wars a cult. I would consider Harry Potter a cult. But Rocky stands out because it is one of the largest and definitely the first in many ways
—
Linus O'Brien
Post Rocky Horror, Curry went on to have a Hollywood career in It, Legend, and Clue. Sadly, the beloved actor suffered a stroke in 2012. He uses a wheelchair and has required assistance with daily tasks ever since. Aside from voiceover work, Strange Journey marks Curry's first film appearance since 2010.
'It took about six months to get Tim Curry on board. Not because he was resistant – it was more a question of scheduling and timing,' O'Brien says. 'Everyone else was very accommodating. I have a lot of personal connections, which really helped. I obviously have a front-row seat to my dad's work, and I've heard all the stories over the years in different parts. So when it came to doing interviews, I could ask questions I kind of already knew the answers to, and still gain more insight.'
[
Richard O'Brien: I don't know that we could make The Rocky Horror Show today
Opens in new window
]
The show's original cast – including Curry – brought the production to Los Angeles in 1974, where it lit up the stage at The Roxy. The film version followed shortly after, shot on a shoestring budget, while the show was gearing up for a Broadway debut. The Broadway production folded quickly after 45 performances and some unkind reviews. The film adaptation similarly flopped upon release in 1975. Audiences were confused by the unconventional mix of sci-fi, horror, camp and sexual themes.
However, it found new life through midnight screenings, particularly in New York. Fans began dressing up as characters, shouting lines at the screen, and creating a unique interactive experience. The movie's mantra – Don't dream it, do it – resonated deeply with marginalised groups, including the LGBTQ+ community. The raucous late-night screenings at the Classic in Harold's Cross were a Dublin legend up to the cinema's closure (with, of course, a last outing for Rocky Horror) in 2003.
One of the people featured in the documentary is Sean Waters, who was once a homeless runaway.
'He talks about how he was safe from 10 to four every Friday and Saturday night at screenings,' O'Brien says. 'His story speaks for thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. It was a place people could go and be themselves before we even had the phrase 'safe space'.'
O'Brien is still moved by what Rocky achieved.
'It's overwhelming sometimes,' he says. 'Rocky has tangibly saved lives. After our premiere at South by Southwest, a man came to the stage and said, 'If it wasn't for Rocky Horror, my wife wouldn't be alive.' Those moments stick with you. It's much deeper than just frivolous fun. Rocky created a real sense of community for people who've felt disenfranchised or marginalised, not just because of sexuality or gender, but because they never quite fit in.'
Richard O'Brien in Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror
The subject matter is close to home for the director, who movingly films his father's return to the New Zealand street where he spent his teenage years. Rather appropriately, the good people of Hamilton have erected a statue of Riff Raff in the town centre. It's a lovely scene that plays like a home movie.
'I've never known my life without Rocky Horror in it,' says O'Brien, who was less than a year old when his father's musical became the talk of London. 'It keeps popping in at different times, like at conventions or new stage productions, or anniversaries. It has just always been in the background for me. I have a real personal relationship to it over the years, and I'm continually very influenced and surprised by the relevance Rocky has today.'
In some of the documentary's most teary scenes, O'Brien senior discusses his lifelong struggle with gender identity, describing himself as existing on a spectrum between male and female. He has stated he feels 70 per cent male and 30 per cent female and has used oestrogen to balance his hormones, finding it helped with his sense of self.
'My dad doesn't like to go too deep emotionally, because he's so sensitive. We both are. So when he opened up in the film, it came out in a natural, light way,' the younger O'Brien says.
But Rocky is no longer simply his story. Richard O'Brien recalls an encounter with a fan who told him: 'It doesn't matter what you think about Rocky Horror any more, Richard. Because it's not yours. It belongs to us, not to you.'
[
Rocky Horror Show review: I heard one person behind me complaining about the heckling
Opens in new window
]
You certainly can't argue with the numbers. To date, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has grossed more than $226 million against a modest $1.4 million budget. It's the longest-running theatrical release in history, continuously screening in cinemas for nearly 50 years, and viewed by more than 60 million people worldwide.
That legacy continues. A Broadway revival in 2000 ran for over a year, and another is slated for 2026 at Studio 54. The stage show lands annually at Dublin's Bord Gáis Energy Theatre; movie screenings are still routine in Ireland and everywhere else. In an era of mass marketing and manufactured fanship, it's the real deal.
'There's still no demystifying that; it's still a strange, magic thing,' says O'Brien. 'Audiences make cults. There are other cults. I would consider Star Wars a cult. I would consider Lord of the Rings a cult. I would consider Harry Potter a cult. But Rocky stands out because it is one of the largest and definitely the first in many ways. It happened before nerd culture and Comic-Con made cults become mainstream. And to a large degree, the cult followings for Star Wars and Harry Potter are superficial.'
His affection for the thing is touching.
'The fans love those worlds. But Rocky works on a much deeper level, in the sense that you meet a lot of people who want to live in that world.'
Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror is at GAZE International LGBTQIA Film Festival on August 2nd
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Irish Times
Wolf Moon by Arifa Akbar: On the night shift
Wolf Moon Author : Arifa Akbar ISBN-13 : 978-1399712859 Publisher : Sceptre Guideline Price : £16.99 Wolf Moon by Arifa Akbar is a book I wanted to like. Its central question—'What does it mean to be a woman in the night?'— serves as a loose thread binding together memoir, cultural criticism and feminist theory. Akbar's experiences of menopausal insomnia lead into analyses of Louise Bourgeois's night drawings and Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis. Visits to her father's care home are interwoven with eerie Pakistani folktales he once told her. She interviews night-shift workers, dancers in Lahore and security guards. She drifts through galleries, goes clubbing and attends late-night films. There's a perceptive reading of Henri Fuseli's The Nightmare, as well as some evocative descriptions of David Lynch scenes. The cultural references are obvious and a little self-consciously tasteful, but they are handled deftly. This is, unmistakably, a serious and intelligent book. Still, the cumulative effect is deadening. READ MORE The problem isn't the material, which is often fascinating, but Akbar's compulsive need to filter it through the dull strainer of introspective autotheory. Entire pages are padded with limp self-reflection—'I think back to' 'I felt' 'I wondered'—until the prose begins to sag under the weight of its own inwardness. The analytical intensity is often laughably disproportionate to the life being examined: 'I put a notebook beside my bed. I open it up the next morning. I write a few words down, but I am left straining for more.' There's also a wearying performance of liberal empathy. When she encounters sex workers dancing in Amsterdam's red-light district, she rushes to ally herself with them, as though fending off imagined accusations. 'I feel horrified,' she declares at a Jack the Ripper tour. 'I was in awe of her fortitude,' she writes of a security guard at her theatre, then asks, 'How did Maria remain invisible to me?' I am naturally distrustful of anyone so easily scandalised. Again and again, moments that might have thrummed with tension are robbed of all charge. We don't just hear that she went to Berghain; we're told what Berghain is, then led through one of the tamest nights in club history. Not her fault, but it's hard to be invested in such a safe and orderly life. A book about night, yes, but drained of its Dionysian wildness.
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Irish Times
Bob Geldof: ‘I never read about myself. I can't stand the stupid f**king things I say'
Bob Geldof has yet to sit down to Live Aid at 40 , the BBC's gripping and expletive-filled account of how he wrangled some of the world's biggest pop stars into appearing at the era-defining 1985 charity concerts at Wembley in London and in Philadelphia . 'I never watch anything that I'm in. I never read anything about myself. I can't stand the stupid f**king things I say. I can't stand looking at my crap hair and all that sort of stuff. But I know about it and the response has been amazing. I was in Britain on the 'anniversary day',' he says, referring to Live Aid's 40th 'birthday' on July 13th. 'Even calling it the 'anniversary day' is weird to me.' Live Aid at 40 portrayed Geldof in a largely laudatory light. There were quibbles about the lyrics of the 1984 Band Aid single, Do They Know It's Christmas? Ethiopian politicians were offended by the song's title, explaining that, with their rich history of Christianity, they were perfectly aware of the birth of Jesus. [ Live Aid at 40: Bob Geldof emerges from this less sanitised version of events seeming somehow more admirable Opens in new window ] But the film's wider message was that Geldof had done something extraordinary by cajoling music's brightest lights – most famously Freddie Mercury and Queen – into coming together to raise millions for the victims of the Ethiopian Famine. He is pleased the documentary was well received, and that the anniversary hoopla has refocused attention on the plight of so many in Africa today. 'The nicest thing I read was that the greatest achievement of Live Aid was, in this world of indifference, [it] put poverty in Africa back on the agenda 40 years later.' READ MORE Geldof (73) has a reputation as a garrulous interviewer and someone prone to going off on a tangent. However, he is chatty and considered when talking to The Irish Times ahead of a performance next weekend by his group the Boomtown Rats in Co Waterford. It's possible we've caught him at a good moment. He's out on the road, leading the band on a 50th anniversary tour and playing to packed houses (a new compilation record, The First 50 Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory, follows in September). Though Live Aid and his campaigning have arguably eclipsed the Boomtown Rats' melodic punk pop, music is still his first love – and on stage, he burns with the same anger that has been a defining quality of his band since they played their debut concert on the campus of Bolton Street Institute of Technology in 1975. His rage came from his experience as a young man coming of age in the near-theocracy that was 1970s Ireland. He wasn't the only one to bristle under the dead hand of the Church – but he spoke out about it where others refused to. That need to lash out was the driving force behind the Boomtown Rats' first single, Rat Trap – inspired by his experience working in an abattoir in Dublin and observing how Catholicism and a life of narrowed horizons had beaten down and hollowed out his colleagues. He was only getting started. He and his band were more or less blacklisted from Ireland after Geldof went on The Late Late Show in 1977 and denounced 'medieval-minded clerics and corrupt politicians'. He also had a go at some nuns heckling from the audience – telling them they had 'an easy life with no material worries in return for which they gave themselves body and soul to the church'. The appearance caused a furore – even the unflappable Gay Byrne looked shocked. The Boomtown Rats would not play again in Ireland until 1980. It was a price he was happy to pay – a point he made clear in the 2020 documentary Citizens of Boomtown, released along with a well-reviewed comeback album of the same name. Bob Geldof: 'I have more or less the exact same opinion as everybody else on the disgrace, the horror of Palestine.' Photograph: Chris Hoare/New York Times Geldof performs with The Boomtown Rats at Leixlip Castle in 1980. Photograph: Paddy Whelan 'There was certainly a focused anger with me,' he says today. 'Perhaps less so with some of the others [in the band]. An inchoate undetermined rage was definitely the fuel. If there was this society that was just stuck, and there didn't seem to be any way that it could unstick itself, we would just go – along with hundreds and thousands of others. But in our going we articulated, I think, that rage – either literally in the songs or in the sound we made.' Decades on, a new generation of Irish musicians has taken up the baton – most prominently the Belfast-Derry rap trio Kneecap and Dublin/Mayo indie band Fontaines DC, who have advocated fiercely on behalf of Gaza. Does he see something of himself and the Boomtown Rats in those artists? [ Citizens of Boomtown: 'Bob Geldof drove me out of my f***ing mind' Opens in new window ] 'As I said, rock'n roll is essentially an articulation of the hitherto inexpressible. If there's something bothering you and you're inherently musical it will find its way. And it is something that seems to catch the zeitgeist. That's why these things become popular. The attitude of Fontaines and Kneecap ... there's a direct line back to Little Richard. It's corny and obvious but it's true.' The distinction, he believes, is that music is no longer at the centre of the culture of protest. It isn't that bands today care any less than their predecessors or that their fans are any less invested. But society no longer looks to music for answers in the way it once did. 'The difference is that ... this is contentious, but why not? I think that rock'n'roll as the spine of the culture was a 50-year phenomenon,' he says. 'In my lifetime rock'n roll was the arbiter of the social dialogue. The role of music has been taken by social media. Pop was our social media.' Everything changed in the early 21st century, he believes. The internet assumed dominance, and music became just another art form rather than a lightning rod for dissent and challenging the status quo. Bob Geldof and Darren Beale of The Boomtown Rats on stage at the Exit Festival in Novi Sad, Serbia, earlier this month. Photograph:'The year 2004 was when Google first made a profit. And 2004 was when this new thing appeared called Facebook. From that point on [music reverted to being] like music in the 1920s, '30s, '40s. Brilliant artists, brilliant writers, wonderful music. Fantastic songs. 'That doesn't mean music has lost all meaning. Just that it is no longer a pillar of social protest. You will always remember the feeling when you first kissed a girl, first kissed a boy. That will always be there,' he continues. '[But] it's been taken over by social media. Social media will take what a band has to say and amplify it. But then again social media is not a broad technology, it is an isolationist technology. So it has less impact. And while these bands make great music and they are fantastic bands, I'm not sure it will have the resonances that pop once had.' Geldof grew up in Dún Laoghaire, Dublin. His mother died of a brain haemorrhage when he was seven, and he was raised by his father, who managed restaurants around Dublin. The singer later attributed what The Irish Times once described as his 'premature independence' and habit of pushing back against the status quo to the absence of a mother and his father's long working hours. Having left Ireland and taken on various jobs in Cambridgeshire and Canada, he returned home and founded the Boomtown Rats in 1975. After one of their early gigs, a woman walked up and asked if she could sleep with him – an exchange he had never imagined possible in 1970s Ireland. At that moment, he understood that being a rock star could change his life. Relocating to London, the band had huge success with singles such as I Don't Like Mondays. The country myself and the Rats left was a very closed society, which ultimately led to a highly degenerate political body — Bob Geldof Geldof entered a relationship with TV presenter Paula Yates . They had three daughters and eventually tied the knot, though the marriage fell apart after Yates embarked on an affair with Michael Hutchence of INXS, with whom she had another daughter. Hutchence died by suicide in 1997. Yates suffered a fatal heroin overdose in 2000. In April 2014 there was further tragedy when Geldof and Yates's 25-year-old daughter Peaches died , also of a drug overdose. In a statement, Geldof said the family was 'beyond pain'. Geldof is widely admired, but he is not above criticism. After Live Aid, he was accused of encouraging a White Saviour attitude towards Africa. The naysayers have included Ed Sheeran who said last year that his vocals were added to a new remix of Do They Know It's Christmas? without his permission. His contribution was taken from a 2014 version of the song, and Sheeran said that, were he asked to participate today, he would decline. He quoted an Instagram post by singer Fuse ODG, who said undertakings such as Live Aid 'perpetuate damaging stereotypes that stifle Africa's economic growth, tourism and investment, ultimately … destroying its dignity, pride and identity'. Geldof and Paula Yates in 1979. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images Live Aid: Geldof and fellow musicians on stage at Wembley in 1985. Photograph: BBC/Brook Lapping/Mirrorpix/Getty Geldof, along with his contemporary Bono, has also been attacked for staying 'quiet' about Gaza. Last year, singer Mary Coughlan said: 'We all saved the world when Bob and Bono were talking about saving the world, and I couldn't understand what was different about this situation in Gaza. Why would they would be so quiet about it?' 'Well of course I have opinions, like anybody,' he says of Gaza, adding that, as a trustee of the Band Aid Charitable Trust, his work with Africa is his primary focus. 'Whether I like it or not, I am associated with Africa. I've spent 40 years … Every day, I wake to at least 10 Band Aid emails about the latest situation. [The charity is] still building hospitals or … dealing with children Sudan. Or dealing with the ruined bodies of gang-raped women … And trying to give them some semblance of a future life. That's what I wake to every morning and have done for 40 years,' says Geldof. 'So you'll forgive me when I speak I stay focused on that where I know from whence I speak. I can literally do something about that. I have obviously more or less the exact same opinion as everybody else on the disgrace, the horror of Palestine. And, as you know, the answer to the issue of Palestine – it's not as if it's unresolvable. It is a two-state solution. And one way or the other that will ultimately occur. ' He points out that in 1984, nobody was taking a public stand about the famine in Ethiopia. He was the first musician with a platform to do so. Today, there is a chorus of voices about Gaza. 'There was an opportunity to give a focus point,' he said of Live Aid. 'There are plenty of focus points with regard to Palestine. But nothing is going to happen there until the wanton killing is stopped.' What about the argument that Ireland and Britain have flipped positions since Geldof was an angry young man? Once hidebound by religion, the Republic has blossomed into a poster child for progressive values – or so we like to tell ourselves. Meanwhile it has become voguish to paint post-Brexit UK as a wasteland of hollowed-out town centres and red-faced men in Wetherspoons complaining about refugees. [ The unsung Irishman behind Live Aid. Not Bono, not Bob, but Paddy Opens in new window ] 'I'd be wary of the starting point with regards to Britain ... It's a dynamic and creative country. Regardless of what you think, it's still the seventh biggest economy on the planet. In Ireland's case, it is transformative. I come back to what I always thought the country could be. That is not to say I don't know very well indeed the contemporary issues. I follow it rigorously and avidly. My family are in Ireland. I'm back all the time. I follow the politics etc. Having said that, the country myself and the Rats left [was] a very closed society, which ultimately led to a highly degenerate political body.' Bono makes an interesting point in the Live Aid documentary about he and Geldof, being Irish, having a folk memory of the Famine. Geldof wasn't aware of Bono's comments – as he says, he didn't watch the series. But he does wonder if being Irish did help put a fire under him. In one scene in the BBC film, he browbeats Margaret Thatcher into essentially removing VAT from Do They Know It's Christmas? He looks her straight in the eyes and talks without fear or deference – something it's hard to imagine even the most ardent English punk rocker doing. [ Live Aid spurred me into becoming a GOAL volunteer on the ground in Africa Opens in new window ] 'One of my pet theories is that punk is largely the product of the first generation of the Windrush people [ie migrants to Britain from the Caribbean] and the first generation of the 1950s mass migration out of Ireland. I don't think it's an accident you had Elvis Costello, Shane MacGowan, George O'Dowd [aka Boy George], Johnny Lydon, Morrissey, Johnny Marr, the Gallagher brothers. A very antsy attitude. Then you had the actual Irish like us. Some of us were friends some of us weren't – rivals or whatever. I always got on really well with Johnny. We always seemed to get on well with each other. Did it make a difference with Live Aid? I don't think anyone was surprised it came out of the Irish community.' The Boomtown Rats play All Together Now at Curraghmore Estate, Co Waterford, over the August bank holiday weekend. The First 50 Years: Songs of Boomtown Glory is released September 19th
Irish Independent
2 days ago
- Irish Independent
Rebel Wilson attacks ‘spiteful, toxic' producers after they sue her in Australia over directorial debut ‘The Deb'
The Pitch Perfect star posted the statement on Instagram yesterday morning after UK-based financiers AI Film lodged fresh legal proceedings against her in the New South Wales Supreme Court, claiming she sabotaged the film's release and made defamatory claims in an attempt to force them to sell her the rights. The Sydney-born actor and director (45) claimed the lawsuit is 'complete nonsense' and part of a wider campaign of 'bullying and harassment' by the film's producers Amanda Ghost, Gregor Cameron and Vince Holden. I'm so proud of the film 'I've nurtured this project for five years. To say otherwise is complete nonsense. I'm so proud of the film,' she wrote. The legal drama over The Deb – a feel-good Australian musical – began in mid-2024 when Wilson publicly accused her fellow producers of embezzlement, sexual misconduct and blocking the film's distribution in a post on Instagram. Her allegations were denied, and Ghost, Cameron and Holden swiftly launched a defamation lawsuit in Los Angeles. Now, with that case still ongoing, AI Film has filed a second lawsuit in Australia, claiming Wilson's real aim was to devalue the production and pressure them into handing over their stake to her company, Camp Sugar. They allege Wilson threatened injunctions and made damaging statements knowing they were false – including to potential distributors – all to gain 'personal financial advantage'. In an Instagram rebuttal, the actor accused the financiers of having 'the power to release the film' but failing to do so 'for a year' since it was completed. 'Instead, in my opinion, they have continued this spiteful toxic behaviour,' she added. The film, which premiered to warm reviews at the Toronto Film Festival last year, remains unreleased – something Wilson said is punishing the cast and crew who worked to bring it to life. ADVERTISEMENT 'What would you do if you were me and a young cast member says she's living with a producer and had a bath and shower with them and feels uncomfortable?' she said. I'd do the same again. I believe in a safe and inclusive workplace Wilson also claimed crew had told her money was being stolen from the production. 'I reported both things. I'd do the same again. I believe in a safe and inclusive workplace,' she added. Lead actor Charlotte MacInnes – named in Wilson's earlier claims – has denied any misconduct, filing a statement in the US court last November calling the allegations 'completely false and absurd'. Wilson yesterday revealed she will release the film's first song, titled F**k My Life, in protest. Despite the legal row, Wilson said she has moved on and is currently directing her second feature. Still, she added that she was posting about The Deb 'with tears in my eyes and a heavy heart'. 'I just want this movie to come out and for all the amazingly talented contributors to be recognised,' she said.
