Punk Rocky.

Just like I feel about Disney movies and Coco Pops and my family and oxygen, I don't really remember a time when The Rocky Horror Show wasn't in my life, even though it isn't really something conventional for a child to grow up with. I have memories of being about eight years old and my dad driving me to my swimming class with a CD of a full production of it in the car, literally every single weekend for about six months, then seeing the movie years later and it was only then that I understood all of the sex references for the first time.

Written by Richard O'Brien, the plot sounds just as ridiculous and fantastic in writing as it actually is - a newly engaged couple's car breaks down on a stormy night, they seek help from what turns out to be a castle full of beings from another planet - governed by the cross-dressing master, Frank-N-Furter, and begin a night they will never forget.

It's one of those odd things my dad and I have always bonded over - if someone says they're "lucky" at any kind of social event, one of us will be quick to darkly and gratuitously declare "I'm lucky! You're lucky! We're aaalllll lucky!", even to a tough crowd that don't catch the reference. We dug that CD out again recently on a drive to Wales, not only sang alone but spoke along with every word.

I love going to see the stage show; the glitz and the glamour, the dressed-up crowd, the drunks and those that call out and interrupt, provoking the narrator's hilarious quick-witted  responses. Sure, the plot completely loses it 50% of the way through and the songs gradually decrease in quality after "Sweet Transvestite". It all adds to what isn't really the experience of going to a play, more just going to a massive party.

The cast in the 40th anniversary production of Rocky Horror I went to on Saturday night involved Dani Harmer (Tracy Beaker! My childhood!) as Janet which was the most bizarre thing to get my head around,  and Philip Franks as the narrator. Every character in it is so iconic and full of life that to be honest I don't think they're roles that are so much given a completely new identity with every actor, but there's been a lot of new ideas and characteristics brought to each production I've seen for sure.

I think even with a lesser cast, it wouldn't really have mattered at all because the most important part of Rocky Horror is always, always the crowd. I just loved going with my friends (all of who were "virgins") and dressing up and forgetting everything in this simaultaneously bizarre and familiarly nostalgic world of the insanity that it is.

Because the point of it is seeing Columbias in sequinned gold hats and jackets sipping gin and tonic in bars the thirty minutes before the theatre opens, Rif-Rafs smoking cigarettes in the street, 40 year old Magentas dragging along their husbands who refused to dress up, and a brave Rocky in golden underwear shivering outside the doors.

I'm definitely not enough of a devoted/cult fan to regularly check fansites or anything but TimeWarp.Org certainly has some great information if you're looking to go for the first time!