With The Rocky Horror Show back in Birmingham, Lorne Jackson speaks to the Brummie who began it all.
When a bright young actor takes on a new role, he asks himself several key questions.
Will the show be a hit? Is my performance on the money? Could this be the part that turns me into the superstar that my mum, my dad, my girlfriend and my ego always told me I would be?
Rayner Bourton didn’t concern himself with such thoughts.
All he worried about was whether the show he had agreed to star in was going to get him arrested.
Such nervousness was understandable.
Rayner, brought up in Selly Park, Birmingham, was playing the title role in a new production called The Rocky Horror Show – one of the most outrageous musicals of all time. Anyone who has witnessed it live, or viewed the spin-off movie, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, will either have been disgusted or titillated.
The original Rocky Horror Show, first produced in 1973, includes transvestism, bisexuality, seedy sex acts plus Rayner, posing prettily in a tight-fitting pair of gold trunks. A far cry from The Sound Of Music.
He recalls: “I can still remember how I felt when I got the script. The first thing you do as an actor – anyone who tells you they don’t is lying – is scan the pages and see how many lines you’ve got. I only had 12. Then I read it, and thought it was tacky.
“It was being put on by The Royal Court, which I couldn’t believe. There wasn’t much money involved, but this was a very prestigious theatre company, dedicated to new work.”
Rayner adds: “I hadn’t spent much time in London when I got the part. At the time I didn’t think it would kill my career.
But I did think: ‘Am I going to get arrested?
’ You’ve got to remember that it was only four years since censorship had been relaxed in the British theatre. So this was still very shocking. It was virtually soft porn.”
Luckily Rayner didn’t end up having to explain himself to the police. Instead, The Rocky Horror Show became a huge hit. An album was quickly recorded of the cast belting out the songs, and Rayner felt as though he was at the epicentre of a 70s version of Beatlemania.
Now he has written a memoir, The Rocky Horror Show: As I Remember It, which recalls those heady days.
Although there have been many books about the show, Rayner’s is the first to be written by an original cast member.
Rather surprisingly, for an actor involved in a huge hit, Rayner refused a long-term contract to re-main the show. His great ambition at the time was to be taken seriously as a classical actor, and he had already played serious roles at The Citizens Theatre in Glasgow.
So, after only a few months, he swapped the Rocky road in London for the bumpy path back to Scotland. Does he regret it? “Hell, yes!” he chuckles. “What I didn’t realise, because I was so obsessed with becoming a classical actor, was that I could have done the classics afterwards.
“And I could have stayed a year as Rocky, which would have been very good for my career. Because, although we were big-time in London, not long after I left, the show exploded worldwide.”
Although Rayner never quite became a megastar, he has always kept himself busy, performing in film, stage and television.
He has also written stage plays, and even appeared in further performances of The Rocky Horror Show in Japan and New Zealand.
“In later years I did make up for bailing out of the show,” says Rayner, who is now based in London and Bromsgrove. “Touring Japan twice was great, as was playing Rocky in New Zealand. Wearing a pair of skin-tight gold shorts has certainly allowed me to see a fair old bit of the world!”
* The Rocky Horror Show: As I Remember It by Rayner Bourton is available online at: www.rockyhorrorbook.com (£12.99), and a new touring version of the Rocky Horror Show is playing at the Birmingham Hippodrome until November 7. For more information or tickets, telephone: 0844338 5000, or www.birminghamhippodrome.com
*
So, is The Rocky Horror show a genuine classic of the modern British theatre, or is Rocky merely schlocky?
Well, it remains a hugely popular slice of musical comedy, and should perhaps be analysed within the post-modern tradition of celebrating irony and pop-culture.
The show was written by Midlander, Richard O’Brien, who was born in Cheltenham, though he moved to New Zealand as a child.
O’Brien returned to the country of his birth to work as a jobbing actor in the 60s. (One of his earliest roles was a bit part in Carry On Cowboy.)
His fortunes changed dramatically when Australian director, Jim Sharman, agreed to make The Rocky Horror Show, which had originally been titled They Came From Denton High.
The plot involves a newly married couple, Brad and Janet, who stumble upon a spooky mansion during a thunderstorm.
Requesting shelter at the house, they are confronted by a host of exotic characters, including Riff Raff, a cadaverous butler, Frank N Furter, a Dracula-like transvestite and, of course, Rocky, a sexy muscle-man built by Frank N Furter.
References are made to a huge number of horror and science fiction films, including Dracula, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man and The Day The Earth Stood Still.
But the show isn’t just a homage to the horror flicks O’Brien adored in his youth. It can also be viewed as a clash between the repressed morality of the buttoned-down 50s, represented by Brad and Janet, and the sexual free-for-all that was the 1960s.
Many of the stars from the original theatre show and spin-off movie went on to become stars.
Oscar winner, Susan Sarandon, played Janet in the movie, while Tim Curry, the original Frank N. Furter has been active in theatre, film and TV.
O’Brien, who played the part of Riff-Raff in the play and movie, went on to present cult TV show, The Crystal Maze.
In 2005, the film version was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
