March 25, 2026 • 19 mins
Nick Mills is joined on the show today by musical legend Richard O'Brien.
O'Brien is the creator of hit musical the Rocky Horror show, and played Riff Raff in the film - which has become a cult classic.
The show is currently touring in Wellington with a West End cast - O'Brien shares his thoughts on how the musical has lasted 50 years, and is still drawing in crowds all over the globe.
He tells Nick about what New Zealand means to him and what bought him home after many years around the world.
Nick asks where his inspiration is from, what he is up to now and what he wants his legacy to be.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talk said, be.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We'll be given the opportunity to speak with a true legend,
someone that I don't know how but sat down thought
about the craziest musical ever recorded written and he came
up with something called The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Richard
O'Brien joins me this morning, Good morning, and welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Hello, Hello. Wonderful introduction.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
That was That was ed Lob, That was just god.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I Rockie wasn't a strange choice of subject, That's true,
but yeah it was. Maturity was never my strong suit.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
How old did I ask you how old you were
when you started writing this? I just so I could
get it round by by I.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Suppose, I suppose when you think about it, I was
I must have been writing in my mind and from
teenage years, because I used to write songs when I
was my teenager, you know, the derivative kind of rock
and roll songs about girls leaving here all the rest
of it. And that one of the early songs was
called thunder Rock. It was about an Indian who I
(01:22):
read Indian who did the war dance, and everybody got
on board.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
With that very derivative stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
But I think in my head I was always I
was always in some kind of dream world. And I
think a lot a lot of actors would probably find
that their origins, that the thing that first drove them
into wanting.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
To be actors a performers.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Was getting all that fun in the garden when you
used to dress up and playmate believe in the garden,
and that childish element, that part of the performing has
never really left me because there's an honesty about it.
It's not about showing off. It's not about performing and
saying look at me, arn't I could watch me doing this.
There's no ego involved, and it's it's rather endearing, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, it's that's the next level. Though Rocky horror is
the next level, isn't it? I'm getting dressed up? I
mean you, I mean, did you think about it fifty
years ago?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Been making believe? Isn't it?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
It is?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I've been fifty years ago, you know. I mean I've
been in this industry all my life as well, and
I keep thinking about how would you actually come up
with this idea and how could you put it all together?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Well, it's it's it's just a collection of themes because
those stories are there all the.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Time, is it?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Brad and Janets are Adam and Eve or the Counsel
and Gretel and the Wicked Serpent and the Wicked old
Witch and the gingerbread house is Frank and Ferd, so
that the story is kind of tales there.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
It's a right of passage.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
But I loved all those those sixties, very early sixties
sci fi b movies from America. But the Brad and
Janet couple parked up in a car, probably going to
sue some petting, and then the bushes would would rattle
and a ceromony would probably go whooo.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I mean, how important.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Did the unintended humor?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Sorry, how important was that that? That's almost I hope
I don't get you cutting me off here when I
ask you. But the sexual content of it, I mean,
we had Stephen Webb and in the studio and talking
to him and he's playing, you know, obviously the lead
in Wellington right now. How important was that to you
(03:43):
when you were writing? It was that, you know, a
young man going crazy?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
No, I think I to some extent it was.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
It was it just felt it had to be said,
the euphemism has been used all the time, and whulp,
fiction of course used euphemism all the time.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
And humor. We were we were inured my generation.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
We were we were taught that that smutty innuendo was
in fact funny when it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
We were encouraged to think. So all the bond.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Move is introduced all that, so he could he could,
you know, put his hand around the back and on
zipper and we all went along with it, and we
were part out of that. But I think to some extent,
I've always wanted to be but more kind of kind
of not look at this a little more clearly and
have have more fun out of this.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Perhaps that was a driving factor.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Do you reckon that? Maybe we've lost a bit of
that now with the world changing the way it was.
I think we've lost that that. I want to use
the word risque in entertainment.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I know, no, no, you can't, you can't go back.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
We're post We're in a post iron to gauge and
that that is that, that's that's cultural evolution.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
It has to happen. We took the right steps, we did.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
We all know, we all know, you know, nudge nudge
jokes aren't funny anymore, and that's a very But you
do raise an interesting question, because you know what is
funny these days, there's not a great deal to laugh at,
because most of the humor was laughing at others one
way or another, whether it be mother in laws or
(05:25):
wives or people of a different color. So I think
we'd take we've gone in the right direction, and very sadly,
I think I think people like the trumpion brigade leading us,
taking us back down and down at the pathway of
he thinks, he thinks intimidation and belittlement is funny, and
(05:46):
he thinks and cruelty amuses him, and we have to
be very careful that we don't go down that path.
One of the nicest things about Rocky is it brings
a great rainbow community into the auditorium. People who were
who are enjoy each other's company. They live love, and
(06:07):
they like love, and they love to laugh, and you know,
and they I think probably probably sent to politically, probably
sent to left.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I would say most of our audience.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
On I work and run a restaurant not far from
where the theater is, and someone a group of people
were dressed up and I said to them as they left,
I said, have a good night. I hear the show.
It's fabulous and a very help there man dressed and
some weird, weird stuff, different stuff, rocky stuff. Looked at
(06:41):
me and said this play was made for me. And
I said, good on you, good on you. You believe
that you enjoy it?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Well, how lovely, I mean, how lovely? I can't. I
still don't like yourself. I can't get my head around it.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
It's when we first when we first gave the amateur
rights to to A.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Samuel French and Company in New York City.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
They took that, took it on because now they were
going to handle sock and amateur rights. But they took
it on as it was a kind of a very
kind of oh yeah, you know, because they had they had,
you know, all the of the heavyweights out West Side
Story and a Clomer and all those and My Fair
Lady and all those big musicals, you know, that.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Proper important one.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
But very quickly it was Rocky that was the one
that was the one that we're turning over a very
very regular basis. And it's outlived all those others, and
and it's it's very strange because it is. It is
a very psch piece, silly bit of nonsense. But isn't
it joyful.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
When you have one of those very rare moments where
you have to yourself and you you know, you've had
a cup of tea and you're sitting there thinking, because
we all think of our successes, don't we? We don't
you know we? How does that feel to you right now?
Speaker 4 (08:08):
I'm I was always a bit dispassionate about it because
I always thought it was I've always a bit like
that when I've grown up. I never got too excited
about anything, just in case it got taken away. And
I think so I've always been a bit detached from it.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
It hasn't been taken away in fifty years. I ain't
going to be taken away now.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
No, I know, I know that's that's true, But I'm
still I'm still absolutely I still can't get my head
around quite around it. The longest running movie in cinema history.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
A man, how do you explain that? I'm not sure
you see.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Because it goes through it's so it's you know, it's
got no generation. I mean, I'm sitting with my producer,
who is a third of my age, and she's watched
the movie six times, which I think is you know,
a bit different. So I mean it's ageless.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
It's ageless, and it's very changed because it's you know,
there's lots of things we were like I'd like to
change if we go back. I'd like, for instance, I'd
like to change the statues of the movie.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I don't think they kind of work.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
I would rather have had them be me up Scotty,
kind of a ladea, you know, toterstake. But you know,
we can't go back, and it does add another B
movie element to the whole things.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Do you still live in New Zealand?
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Yes, yes, indeed we do right where we're we're we're
up in the Bay of Plenty.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Have you seen this latest show that's touring New Zealand?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Indeed I have. I saw it.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
I saw it in Auckland and then I went I
went down to christ Church to see the last show there,
and I'm coming down on Sunday to see the final
show and Winning.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Is that your thing? Isn't it kind of a bit
weird that you come to see the last show. I
would have thought, as the creator, you'd want to see
the first show to say, should I don't like that?
Speaker 4 (09:54):
First I saw the first show in Auckland. I saw
the first two shows in Auckland.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
But you know how, sorry I'm over talking to you.
I'm sorry, I'm getting excited. I'm getting a bit excited.
So tell me. Tell me people that have seen the
show in Welington. I mean it's on at nighttime and
I work in the morning, so I haven't seen it yet,
but say that it's outstanding. It's westin comes to Wellington.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
The the the the the production values are exceptionally good.
But lighting is fab theous days with with with all
the new lighting with LED lights and things that that
is spectacularly good. And of course the cast is fantastic.
The band, the band is Rocks. So that that's for
(10:41):
me to stand at the back of the theater and
hear the band rocking and the audience laughing is a
wonderful feeling.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
And how do we get them to dress up? I mean,
it's incredible.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
That's another nice thing about it.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
You see people that people are coming to see the
show go home, and to some extent, the party is
beginning then and there, getting getting ready to come in
and getting dressed up, and by the time they get
to the theater and into the into the lobby and then
into the auditorium, you know, it is like this lovely, joyous, friendly,
(11:17):
happy party.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
It's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Are you working on anything else?
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Actually?
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Actually I had a I was thinking of a thing
I wrote. I wrote back in nineteen eighty eight, and
I'm just revisiting that is a kind of.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
A look at Julius Caesar as a comedy. I'm not
quite sure I found the script. The book is terrible.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
I can't believe that I wrote it, but the songs
had something going for them. So I'm playing around with
that at the moment. It keeps me off the street.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Why in New Zealand?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Because I was brought up in New Zealand. I went
to school here.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
We know that you can look, you can live anywhere
you want to in the world.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Actually, truthfully, my
parents are buried here. I am as I said, I
went through puberty in New Zealand. I think that's the
most important part of your life, isn't I was ten
when I got here, and I went back when I
was twenty two, three years working holiday, and it took
me fifty years to get back home, and I've always
(12:27):
wanted to come back.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
You know, they say that the music that you hear
when you're thirteen and fourteen as the music that sticks
you sticks with you for the rest of your life.
Do you agree with it?
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Well, there's there's there's there's one song that I'm twoty
Fruity is probably locked into my brain in a big way.
It kind of like exemplifies that that that wonder of it.
Didn't you don't it doesn't even have to make sense.
Starts a pop A lockdown boom is fantastic when when
(13:02):
it was screamed by little Richard uplifting for the thirteen
year old body boy.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
So we're two here now we're what's what? What have
you got? What are you going to do? What? What's
the future?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
I've met have a music h satirical fairy tale anti trump.
But we took around the country called the Kingdom of
Bling where we're turning it. We're trying to turn that
into a stop motion animated, animated piece in Auckland with
some people there. I've got a book coming out called
A Tune for the New Harvest Moon which is a
(13:38):
a soreritical fairy, a fairy, a cautionary tale. In verse
with with with that, with lovely, lovely pictures. And so
there's something to beginning. And I keep I keep muddling away,
muddling through the day.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
What do you want to be remembered? What? How would
you like to be remembered? I shouldn't be saying this
to you, should I? But I'm just I'm just curious.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
I don't. I don't, I don't, I don't know. I
have no idea really truth, No, I don't. I don't
don't have any thoughts about that. Quite frankly, I wouldn't
know what. I wouldn't know how to answer that.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
I would say, brilliant one word.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
No, No, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Of course you wouldn't. Of course you would.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Fondly I thought of, fondly, fondly thought of that'll do.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
You still enjoy life? You laughing and smiling and happy?
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Life is life is Life is a gift, like a
conscious thought is a gift as a result of it
was a byproduct of their evolution. If I could do
one thing before I die, if I could convince all
Abrahamic creation with fantasists, that that's exactly what it is,
creation with fantasy, and wake up. Whether you're Judy or
Christian or Islamic, I would just wake up, for Heaven's.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
It's so ingrained, doesn't it. It's so entrenched.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
But it's it's the it's the it's the it's the
downfall of humanity really in a high way of rationality.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
It's so silly in one hundred years time and the
Rocky Horror Picture Show is still going and it's still
creating records. I mean that's a reality, isn't it now?
I mean, if you've lasted fifty years, it's going to
keep going.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yes, it's it's it's it does seem to have a
life of its own once again. I can't begin to
tell you how or why, but it is.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
It's stuff like one thing you are, you are guaranteed
to have a good night out, And that in itself
isn't a bad thing, is it?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
We all need we all need a good night out?
Speaker 4 (15:51):
I think so, especially in the present claimate, especially because
because we're not we're not. As we keep our governments,
local governments keep talking about community, the local community or
the so and so community, it's there's no such thing anymore.
People don't know their neighbors, people are stuck on their iPhones.
We've all become so insular and were looking at our
(16:12):
own particular needs of things and our own particular likes.
We've become less and less more, less and less communal activities,
and and we we we we're not. We need to
make sure that we're all in it together, and we
don't forget the fact that fact divide and conqueror as
one way of Big Brother getting around us.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And that's not good news.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
We need we need more community spirit and bigger events
where we come together joyously and and and know that
we're all in it together, looking after one another. Because
AI is going to put a lot of people out
of work and onto the public purse. Things aren't going
to improve in that direction. And it's essential that we
don't start to tear each other and and fight the
(16:58):
way that the way that Trump is deliberately demonizing Democrats
and anybody left left of center simply for his own greed,
doggie dog world that he wants us to live. And
it's dreadful, it's disgusting.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
You know. One of the amazing parts of the Rocky
Horror Picture Show. That always impresses me is that people
actually go in as strangers and come out as friends.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
That's nice, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
They sort of go in there, go in there feeling
that they want to have a good time in the
person next to them is dancing and enjoying themselves, letting
their hair down. So that talk of you wanting to
know your neighbor is in a show.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Well you they are. That's the other thing, isn't that
everybody knows they're safe. Yeah, that's essential.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
And that when you think about when you wrote it,
they didn't.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
None of none of that. You see, there's another there's another.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Wonderful irony because the Royal Court Theater when we put
the show on, was dedicated to putting on the social theater.
That's what they were about. That was their remit and
Rocky was always regarded with a little bit of you know, yes,
that's very nice about it's you know, and dismissed as
(18:17):
a piece of fluff and a bit of froth, just
as an entertainment, which in fact it was. But ironically
it's become the most impactful social piece of theater ever
to come out of the Roycal Theater, and that in
itself is also very odd social impact. Not look back
(18:39):
in anger, I don't think so. And that was the
next big, big play that came out of there. And
yet they still I.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Think, hold us with some kind of slightly embarrassed our success.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Perhaps I don't know. Thank you for joining us and
giving us your time. It's incredible talking to you and
there's no echoe, there's no echo, there's no eccolades that
excuse me that I could give you, but to say
thank you, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Thank you, take care, look after yourself.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Thank you for what you for what you produce. Thank
you for being you, thank you for being a KEI.
We thank you for all of the above.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Thank you, dining boy. That's very nice to hear.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Bye, God bless.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
to news talks It'd be Wellington from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talk said, be.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We'll be given the opportunity to speak with a true legend,
someone that I don't know how but sat down thought
about the craziest musical ever recorded written and he came
up with something called The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Richard
O'Brien joins me this morning, Good morning, and welcome.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Hello, Hello. Wonderful introduction.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
That was That was ed Lob, That was just god.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
I Rockie wasn't a strange choice of subject, That's true,
but yeah it was. Maturity was never my strong suit.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
How old did I ask you how old you were
when you started writing this? I just so I could
get it round by by I.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Suppose, I suppose when you think about it, I was
I must have been writing in my mind and from
teenage years, because I used to write songs when I
was my teenager, you know, the derivative kind of rock
and roll songs about girls leaving here all the rest
of it. And that one of the early songs was
called thunder Rock. It was about an Indian who I
(01:22):
read Indian who did the war dance, and everybody got
on board.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
With that very derivative stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
But I think in my head I was always I
was always in some kind of dream world. And I
think a lot a lot of actors would probably find
that their origins, that the thing that first drove them
into wanting.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
To be actors a performers.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Was getting all that fun in the garden when you
used to dress up and playmate believe in the garden,
and that childish element, that part of the performing has
never really left me because there's an honesty about it.
It's not about showing off. It's not about performing and
saying look at me, arn't I could watch me doing this.
There's no ego involved, and it's it's rather endearing, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, it's that's the next level. Though Rocky horror is
the next level, isn't it? I'm getting dressed up? I
mean you, I mean, did you think about it fifty
years ago?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Been making believe? Isn't it?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
It is?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
I've been fifty years ago, you know. I mean I've
been in this industry all my life as well, and
I keep thinking about how would you actually come up
with this idea and how could you put it all together?
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Well, it's it's it's just a collection of themes because
those stories are there all the.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Time, is it?
Speaker 4 (02:39):
Brad and Janets are Adam and Eve or the Counsel
and Gretel and the Wicked Serpent and the Wicked old
Witch and the gingerbread house is Frank and Ferd, so
that the story is kind of tales there.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
It's a right of passage.
Speaker 4 (02:57):
But I loved all those those sixties, very early sixties
sci fi b movies from America. But the Brad and
Janet couple parked up in a car, probably going to
sue some petting, and then the bushes would would rattle
and a ceromony would probably go whooo.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I mean, how important.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Did the unintended humor?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Sorry, how important was that that? That's almost I hope
I don't get you cutting me off here when I
ask you. But the sexual content of it, I mean,
we had Stephen Webb and in the studio and talking
to him and he's playing, you know, obviously the lead
in Wellington right now. How important was that to you
(03:43):
when you were writing? It was that, you know, a
young man going crazy?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
No, I think I to some extent it was.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
It was it just felt it had to be said,
the euphemism has been used all the time, and whulp,
fiction of course used euphemism all the time.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
And humor. We were we were inured my generation.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
We were we were taught that that smutty innuendo was
in fact funny when it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
We were encouraged to think. So all the bond.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Move is introduced all that, so he could he could,
you know, put his hand around the back and on
zipper and we all went along with it, and we
were part out of that. But I think to some extent,
I've always wanted to be but more kind of kind
of not look at this a little more clearly and
have have more fun out of this.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Perhaps that was a driving factor.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Do you reckon that? Maybe we've lost a bit of
that now with the world changing the way it was.
I think we've lost that that. I want to use
the word risque in entertainment.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I know, no, no, you can't, you can't go back.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
We're post We're in a post iron to gauge and
that that is that, that's that's cultural evolution.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
It has to happen. We took the right steps, we did.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
We all know, we all know, you know, nudge nudge
jokes aren't funny anymore, and that's a very But you
do raise an interesting question, because you know what is
funny these days, there's not a great deal to laugh at,
because most of the humor was laughing at others one
way or another, whether it be mother in laws or
(05:25):
wives or people of a different color. So I think
we'd take we've gone in the right direction, and very sadly,
I think I think people like the trumpion brigade leading us,
taking us back down and down at the pathway of
he thinks, he thinks intimidation and belittlement is funny, and
(05:46):
he thinks and cruelty amuses him, and we have to
be very careful that we don't go down that path.
One of the nicest things about Rocky is it brings
a great rainbow community into the auditorium. People who were
who are enjoy each other's company. They live love, and
(06:07):
they like love, and they love to laugh, and you know,
and they I think probably probably sent to politically, probably
sent to left.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
I would say most of our audience.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
On I work and run a restaurant not far from
where the theater is, and someone a group of people
were dressed up and I said to them as they left,
I said, have a good night. I hear the show.
It's fabulous and a very help there man dressed and
some weird, weird stuff, different stuff, rocky stuff. Looked at
(06:41):
me and said this play was made for me. And
I said, good on you, good on you. You believe
that you enjoy it?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Well, how lovely, I mean, how lovely? I can't. I
still don't like yourself. I can't get my head around it.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
It's when we first when we first gave the amateur
rights to to A.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Samuel French and Company in New York City.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
They took that, took it on because now they were
going to handle sock and amateur rights. But they took
it on as it was a kind of a very
kind of oh yeah, you know, because they had they had,
you know, all the of the heavyweights out West Side
Story and a Clomer and all those and My Fair
Lady and all those big musicals, you know, that.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Proper important one.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
But very quickly it was Rocky that was the one
that was the one that we're turning over a very
very regular basis. And it's outlived all those others, and
and it's it's very strange because it is. It is
a very psch piece, silly bit of nonsense. But isn't
it joyful.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
When you have one of those very rare moments where
you have to yourself and you you know, you've had
a cup of tea and you're sitting there thinking, because
we all think of our successes, don't we? We don't
you know we? How does that feel to you right now?
Speaker 4 (08:08):
I'm I was always a bit dispassionate about it because
I always thought it was I've always a bit like
that when I've grown up. I never got too excited
about anything, just in case it got taken away. And
I think so I've always been a bit detached from it.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
It hasn't been taken away in fifty years. I ain't
going to be taken away now.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
No, I know, I know that's that's true, But I'm
still I'm still absolutely I still can't get my head
around quite around it. The longest running movie in cinema history.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
A man, how do you explain that? I'm not sure
you see.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Because it goes through it's so it's you know, it's
got no generation. I mean, I'm sitting with my producer,
who is a third of my age, and she's watched
the movie six times, which I think is you know,
a bit different. So I mean it's ageless.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
It's ageless, and it's very changed because it's you know,
there's lots of things we were like I'd like to
change if we go back. I'd like, for instance, I'd
like to change the statues of the movie.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
I don't think they kind of work.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
I would rather have had them be me up Scotty,
kind of a ladea, you know, toterstake. But you know,
we can't go back, and it does add another B
movie element to the whole things.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Do you still live in New Zealand?
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Yes, yes, indeed we do right where we're we're we're
up in the Bay of Plenty.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Have you seen this latest show that's touring New Zealand?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Indeed I have. I saw it.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
I saw it in Auckland and then I went I
went down to christ Church to see the last show there,
and I'm coming down on Sunday to see the final
show and Winning.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Is that your thing? Isn't it kind of a bit
weird that you come to see the last show. I
would have thought, as the creator, you'd want to see
the first show to say, should I don't like that?
Speaker 4 (09:54):
First I saw the first show in Auckland. I saw
the first two shows in Auckland.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
But you know how, sorry I'm over talking to you.
I'm sorry, I'm getting excited. I'm getting a bit excited.
So tell me. Tell me people that have seen the
show in Welington. I mean it's on at nighttime and
I work in the morning, so I haven't seen it yet,
but say that it's outstanding. It's westin comes to Wellington.
Speaker 4 (10:21):
The the the the the production values are exceptionally good.
But lighting is fab theous days with with with all
the new lighting with LED lights and things that that
is spectacularly good. And of course the cast is fantastic.
The band, the band is Rocks. So that that's for
(10:41):
me to stand at the back of the theater and
hear the band rocking and the audience laughing is a
wonderful feeling.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
And how do we get them to dress up? I mean,
it's incredible.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
That's another nice thing about it.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
You see people that people are coming to see the
show go home, and to some extent, the party is
beginning then and there, getting getting ready to come in
and getting dressed up, and by the time they get
to the theater and into the into the lobby and then
into the auditorium, you know, it is like this lovely, joyous, friendly,
(11:17):
happy party.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
It's fantastic.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Are you working on anything else?
Speaker 3 (11:23):
Actually?
Speaker 4 (11:24):
Actually I had a I was thinking of a thing
I wrote. I wrote back in nineteen eighty eight, and
I'm just revisiting that is a kind of.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
A look at Julius Caesar as a comedy. I'm not
quite sure I found the script. The book is terrible.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
I can't believe that I wrote it, but the songs
had something going for them. So I'm playing around with
that at the moment. It keeps me off the street.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Why in New Zealand?
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Because I was brought up in New Zealand. I went
to school here.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
We know that you can look, you can live anywhere
you want to in the world.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Actually, truthfully, my
parents are buried here. I am as I said, I
went through puberty in New Zealand. I think that's the
most important part of your life, isn't I was ten
when I got here, and I went back when I
was twenty two, three years working holiday, and it took
me fifty years to get back home, and I've always
(12:27):
wanted to come back.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
You know, they say that the music that you hear
when you're thirteen and fourteen as the music that sticks
you sticks with you for the rest of your life.
Do you agree with it?
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Well, there's there's there's there's one song that I'm twoty
Fruity is probably locked into my brain in a big way.
It kind of like exemplifies that that that wonder of it.
Didn't you don't it doesn't even have to make sense.
Starts a pop A lockdown boom is fantastic when when
(13:02):
it was screamed by little Richard uplifting for the thirteen
year old body boy.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
So we're two here now we're what's what? What have
you got? What are you going to do? What? What's
the future?
Speaker 4 (13:18):
I've met have a music h satirical fairy tale anti trump.
But we took around the country called the Kingdom of
Bling where we're turning it. We're trying to turn that
into a stop motion animated, animated piece in Auckland with
some people there. I've got a book coming out called
A Tune for the New Harvest Moon which is a
(13:38):
a soreritical fairy, a fairy, a cautionary tale. In verse
with with with that, with lovely, lovely pictures. And so
there's something to beginning. And I keep I keep muddling away,
muddling through the day.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
What do you want to be remembered? What? How would
you like to be remembered? I shouldn't be saying this
to you, should I? But I'm just I'm just curious.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
I don't. I don't, I don't, I don't know. I
have no idea really truth, No, I don't. I don't
don't have any thoughts about that. Quite frankly, I wouldn't
know what. I wouldn't know how to answer that.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
I would say, brilliant one word.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
No, No, I wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Of course you wouldn't. Of course you would.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Fondly I thought of, fondly, fondly thought of that'll do.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
You still enjoy life? You laughing and smiling and happy?
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Life is life is Life is a gift, like a
conscious thought is a gift as a result of it
was a byproduct of their evolution. If I could do
one thing before I die, if I could convince all
Abrahamic creation with fantasists, that that's exactly what it is,
creation with fantasy, and wake up. Whether you're Judy or
Christian or Islamic, I would just wake up, for Heaven's.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
It's so ingrained, doesn't it. It's so entrenched.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
But it's it's the it's the it's the it's the
downfall of humanity really in a high way of rationality.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
It's so silly in one hundred years time and the
Rocky Horror Picture Show is still going and it's still
creating records. I mean that's a reality, isn't it now?
I mean, if you've lasted fifty years, it's going to
keep going.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Yes, it's it's it's it does seem to have a
life of its own once again. I can't begin to
tell you how or why, but it is.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
It's stuff like one thing you are, you are guaranteed
to have a good night out, And that in itself
isn't a bad thing, is it?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
We all need we all need a good night out?
Speaker 4 (15:51):
I think so, especially in the present claimate, especially because
because we're not we're not. As we keep our governments,
local governments keep talking about community, the local community or
the so and so community, it's there's no such thing anymore.
People don't know their neighbors, people are stuck on their iPhones.
We've all become so insular and were looking at our
(16:12):
own particular needs of things and our own particular likes.
We've become less and less more, less and less communal activities,
and and we we we we're not. We need to
make sure that we're all in it together, and we
don't forget the fact that fact divide and conqueror as
one way of Big Brother getting around us.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
And that's not good news.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
We need we need more community spirit and bigger events
where we come together joyously and and and know that
we're all in it together, looking after one another. Because
AI is going to put a lot of people out
of work and onto the public purse. Things aren't going
to improve in that direction. And it's essential that we
don't start to tear each other and and fight the
(16:58):
way that the way that Trump is deliberately demonizing Democrats
and anybody left left of center simply for his own greed,
doggie dog world that he wants us to live. And
it's dreadful, it's disgusting.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
You know. One of the amazing parts of the Rocky
Horror Picture Show. That always impresses me is that people
actually go in as strangers and come out as friends.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
That's nice, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
They sort of go in there, go in there feeling
that they want to have a good time in the
person next to them is dancing and enjoying themselves, letting
their hair down. So that talk of you wanting to
know your neighbor is in a show.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Well you they are. That's the other thing, isn't that
everybody knows they're safe. Yeah, that's essential.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
And that when you think about when you wrote it,
they didn't.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
None of none of that. You see, there's another there's another.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Wonderful irony because the Royal Court Theater when we put
the show on, was dedicated to putting on the social theater.
That's what they were about. That was their remit and
Rocky was always regarded with a little bit of you know, yes,
that's very nice about it's you know, and dismissed as
(18:17):
a piece of fluff and a bit of froth, just
as an entertainment, which in fact it was. But ironically
it's become the most impactful social piece of theater ever
to come out of the Roycal Theater, and that in
itself is also very odd social impact. Not look back
(18:39):
in anger, I don't think so. And that was the
next big, big play that came out of there. And
yet they still I.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Think, hold us with some kind of slightly embarrassed our success.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Perhaps I don't know. Thank you for joining us and
giving us your time. It's incredible talking to you and
there's no echoe, there's no echo, there's no eccolades that
excuse me that I could give you, but to say
thank you, it's my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Thank you, take care, look after yourself.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Thank you for what you for what you produce. Thank
you for being you, thank you for being a KEI.
We thank you for all of the above.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Thank you, dining boy. That's very nice to hear.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Bye, God bless.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
to news talks It'd be Wellington from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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