The Rocky Horror Show
50th Annniversary Spectactular Tour
50 years ago, The Rocky Horror Picture Show first appeared on our screens. Just like The Time Warp, time is fleeting. The fact that this B-rated movie, based on a B-rated musical , set in a C-rated film studio is still going strong is quite astounding! So is the event we were recently invited to!
I lost my Rocky Horror virginity some years ago – still spending an evening with these creatures of the night (as fans of the show are referred to) is something else. I’ve done a number of strange things on a Sunday, but joining over 400 people dressed as characters from the film, along with over a further 1600 passionate devotees of the movie at The Dominion Theatre, London, probably takes the biscuit! More than this, the entire movie is re-enacted by a very committed shadow cast. They portray, below the screen, every moment, simultaneously as we are seeing on it on screen with various levels of irreverence! As my companion suggested, it’s like sitting through a fever dream! Indeed, if Martians were to have landed on the Tottenham Court Road on Sunday night they might well have wondered what planet they had landed on!!
You can’t help but admire the commitment of everyone gathered! This includes four members of the original cast Barry Bostwick (Brad), Peter Hinwood (Rocky), Patricia Quinn (Magenta) and the delightfully bonkers Nell Campbell (Columbia). They share with us some of the stories of how they were commissioned to be in the show; from Nell dancing on tables in a café where she waited tables, to Peter who claimed to be one of the few body-builders of the time and was spotted along the Kings’ Road in London some fifty years ago!
Our host for the evening is Larry Viezel, head of the Rocky Horror Show Fan Club. He appears to know the show inside and out. He has a no compromise approach to the show “Enjoy it or go” (an edit of his actual phrase for our more delicate readers). His insight includes knowing when every character opens their mouth – he’s always there to pop something into it! You have to be there to know – which is probably the tag line to do with anything Rocky Horror show-related. The call backs – or indeed you might say the alternative script – come thick and fast from the audience, complete with a bag of props containing a newspaper, party hat, rubber glove, party blower and glow stick. Again, if you know, you know!
There was a moment when I was taken aback to see everyone sat around me with a newspaper on their head with no apparent sense of irony!
The Rocky Horror Show is unapologetically naff and the 50th Anniversary Tour joins in that grand tradition of attracting a bonkers audience to view and participate.
To this regular theatre goer all I can say is “it’s astounding!” and I’m sure lots of people will want to join the party.
This show was reviewed on the 19th April 2026 at the Dominion Theatre, London.
Review written by Paul Wood
AD/Gifted
Photo credit: Supplied by PR
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