person or book cover
Screen cap from opening credits.
form y separately published work icon The Rocky Horror Picture Show single work   film/TV   science fiction   fantasy  
Issue Details: First known date: 1975... 1975 The Rocky Horror Picture Show
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

A cult favourite, The Rocky Horror Picture Show follows the mis-adventures of newly engaged couple Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, as they're forced, after their car breaks down, to take shelter in the sinister house of Dr Frank-N-Furter.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      20th Century Fox ,
      1975 .
      person or book cover
      Screen cap from opening credits.
      Extent: 100min.p.

Works about this Work

Richard O'Brien Takes the Stage in Adelaide to Celebrate 50 Years of the Rocky Horror Show Rebecca Opie , Dimitria Panagiotaros , 2023 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , April 2023;

'When Richard O'Brien first brought the Rocky Horror Show to the stage in 1973, he thought it would play for three weeks, at most.'

Comic in Suspenders : Jim Sharman’s Circus Worlds in The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show Anna-Sophie Jürgens , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 43 no. 4 2018; (p. 507-523)

'This article reframes an icon of twentieth-century cross-cultural folklore. It argues that the protagonist in The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show is both a hybrid of two types of comic entertainers and an example of the way the pantomime tradition travelled between England and Australia. By clarifying what original Rockydirector, the Australian Jim Sharman, likes to call his “colourful past”, and by exploring his many reflections on popular culture, this article maps out his relationship to the aesthetics of the circus world and to clowning in order to understand their echoes in Rocky Horror. Sharman’s numerous references to Australian popular culture unveil a circus-struck theatrical ethos. They also convey that Dr Franknfurter, the Transylvanian scientist protagonist in the musical and film, is funny because he is so much a clown. In fact, this sweet transvestite extraterrestre draws on qualities of two quintessential comic favourites of the circus world: violent clowns and panto dames. The Franknfurter character is thus related to both: the axe-wielding cannibalesque antics of comic madcaps from the (sawdust) stage and the Australian comedians and dame role performers Bobby le Brun and Barry Humphries. Frankie is a blend of particular clown traditions as well as their dashing actualisation.'  (Publication abstract)

Comic in Suspenders : Jim Sharman’s Circus Worlds in The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show Anna-Sophie Jürgens , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 43 no. 4 2018; (p. 507-523)

'This article reframes an icon of twentieth-century cross-cultural folklore. It argues that the protagonist in The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show is both a hybrid of two types of comic entertainers and an example of the way the pantomime tradition travelled between England and Australia. By clarifying what original Rockydirector, the Australian Jim Sharman, likes to call his “colourful past”, and by exploring his many reflections on popular culture, this article maps out his relationship to the aesthetics of the circus world and to clowning in order to understand their echoes in Rocky Horror. Sharman’s numerous references to Australian popular culture unveil a circus-struck theatrical ethos. They also convey that Dr Franknfurter, the Transylvanian scientist protagonist in the musical and film, is funny because he is so much a clown. In fact, this sweet transvestite extraterrestre draws on qualities of two quintessential comic favourites of the circus world: violent clowns and panto dames. The Franknfurter character is thus related to both: the axe-wielding cannibalesque antics of comic madcaps from the (sawdust) stage and the Australian comedians and dame role performers Bobby le Brun and Barry Humphries. Frankie is a blend of particular clown traditions as well as their dashing actualisation.'  (Publication abstract)

Richard O'Brien Takes the Stage in Adelaide to Celebrate 50 Years of the Rocky Horror Show Rebecca Opie , Dimitria Panagiotaros , 2023 single work column
— Appears in: ABC News [Online] , April 2023;

'When Richard O'Brien first brought the Rocky Horror Show to the stage in 1973, he thought it would play for three weeks, at most.'

Last amended 31 May 2012 15:54:36
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