Breaking the Fourth Wall

By Ashley Lister


There might be some of you reading this who’ve never encountered the Rocky Horror Picture Show. If that’s the case, you’ll find the next few hundred words either puzzling, peculiar or pointless.

Created by Richard O’Brien, the man who wrote the book, music and lyrics, the Rocky Horror Picture Show is a musical that parodies science fiction films and B-movie horror flicks. The 1975 film version, taken from the original 1973 stage production, had a cast that included Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Meatloaf, Barry Bostwick, Charles Grey and Richard O’Brien himself. Interest was also shown by Mike Jagger for the role of Frank N Furter whilst Vincent Price considered the part of the Criminology. Now, thirty five years after Jim Sharman directed the version for the cinemas, the Rocky Horror Picture Show remains not so much a musical, as a rite-of-passage experience.

Part of this is to do with the quality of the songs. O’Brien wrote the original score in 1973 yet the songs and the music are as vibrant and enjoyable today as they were when it was first on stage.

There are not many musicals that can make this grand claim.


Part of the success is the fact that the film is parodying recognisable genre stereotypes. The plot is a ridiculous coming-of-age/Frankenstein’s monster/spooky old house/alien invasion combination that would defy a rational synopsis. None of the stories or subplots within the Rocky Horror Picture Show is particularly original. But they all work beautifully together. And each of the parodies fit snugly and seamlessly together.

Obviously, a large part of the success should be credited toward the writer and the cast for pulling off such a wonderful big screen performance. Tim Curry is an astounding Frank N Furter. O’Brien’s Riff Raff is an hilarious combination of sinister and pathetic – which doesn’t hamper his ability to sing or dance. Little Nell and Meatloaf enjoy a genuine onscreen chemistry.

But the main contributor to the Rocky Horror Picture Show’s continuing success has to be the audience participation. If I had the time or skills to research, there’d be a fascinating piece here explaining when and where the first audience participation occurred. But I’m equipped with neither. And, like so many things in life, the first time isn’t really that important.

Most accounts say the audience interaction began with the midnight showings in New York and Texas around 1976. This may or may not be true. What is important is that it continues to happen.

A large percentage of Rocky Horror Picture Show fans go to see the film dressed in costumes similar to the larger-than-life characters on screen. Thanks to VHS and DVD the script is known verbatim to aficionados and this insider knowledge prompts the onscreen dialogue with catcalls and coarse remarks:

RIFF-RAFF (to Brad & Janet): I think perhaps you better both…
AUDIENCE: FUCK OFF!
RIFF-RAFF: …come inside.

Or

Frank N Furter: Whatever happened to Faye Wray?
AUDIENCE: She got fucked by a gorilla.

It sounds childish and reductive. The audience are wearing stockings, corsets and heels. The decorum of the traditional cinema experience is replaced by singing, shouting, dancing in the aisles, the throwing of rice, firing water pistols, and general madcap antics that would have most people announcing the end of civilization. Yet it works.

More than that, the success of the cinema experience has meant that the show has gone back to the stage. Live performances take the interactive experience one step further:

Frank N Furter: Whatever happened to Faye Wray?
AUDIENCE: She got fucked by a gorilla.
Frank N Furter: So did your mother!


Why is it a success? Because it’s fun and sexy. More than that, there are very few films or stage shows that can claim to provide a different experience every time. And perhaps it’s that blend of the familiar with something new that allows this theatre experience to reside in its own legendary time warp. Or, perhaps it’s the sense of anarchic hedonism in the film – physically accessible to the audience through dressing up and shouting in the sanctuary of a theatre – that makes it appeal to creatures of the night? Whatever the reason, the Rocky Horror Picture Show remains an outstanding experience and leaves audiences with a single, compelling message: don’t dream it, be it. It’s difficult to imagine a more apposite phrase for a film that relies so heavily on audience participation.