Richard O’Brien has expressed doubts about whether his hit musical The Rocky Horror Show could be written in modern times.
The writer, performer and presenter of The Crystal Maze wrote the 1973 stage show and co-wrote the screenplay for its film adaptation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, two years later.
Rocky Horror revolves around the character Dr Frank-N-Furter (played by Tim Curry in the film), an eccentric, Frankenstein-esque scientist who describes himself as a “sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania”.
When asked about the show to mark its 50th anniversary, O’Brien, 81, recalled the freedom he felt when creating the stage musical and film in the Seventies. In contrast, he suggested that he would have to use more caution if he created it today.
“We weren’t confined in any manner when making Rocky,” he told The Times. “We made it the way we wanted to make it without anybody looking over our shoulders or even second-guessing ourselves.
“But today, there are different areas we have to be careful that we don’t upset people for different reasons. Thankfully, it’s been able to carry on, but I don’t know whether we could make it today.”
O’Brien went on to express the difficulties of creating authentically while being aware of people scrutinising your work.
“It’s very difficult to find your own voice if someone’s looking over your shoulder and second-guessing you and saying, ‘Oh no, you can’t do that’,” he continued. “Good taste should be there but we should even be able to push good taste to one side from time to time and get a little dirty.”
O’Brien has long been vocal about his own experiences of rejecting expected ideas of gender and described himself as being “70 per cent male and 30 per cent female” in 2013.
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He describes the show’s long-lasting and wide-ranging appeal as something that came from its jolly qualities, despite its “subversive” nature.
“It’s become a kind of family favourite, which is very odd when you think about the subject matter we deal with. Because it is subversive, it deals with issues that could be a bit out there, but strangely it has a very happy kind of feel about it,” he said.
Last week, O’Brien brushed off criticisms of the language of the musical using the word “transvestite” – now considered an archaic term.
He offered that the show had “reclaimed” the word in a positive way. “People say that it changed their lives and made life easier for them. It never was intended to be a rainbow event, but it is by default, and I’m grateful for that,” O’Brien told Radio Times.
