The Rocky Horror Show

Richard, who was born in 1942, began his life in the world of entertainment in 1965 when, at the age of 23, he rode horses in British-made movies. He had no desire to become a full-time stuntman and, wisely, took himself off to an evening drama school, which claimed to adhere to the teaching principles of Stanislavski, Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler and anyone else that had decided to embrace the more ‘naturalistic’ approach to acting, commonly known as the Method.

In 1967, Richard became an ASM and understudy in a musical touring version of The Barretts of Wimpole Street, retitled as Robert and Elizabeth. He worked backstage in many West End theatres, most notably the Cambridge Theatre at Seven Dials, where, among other duties, he shone a limelight upon John Hanson who, at the age of 46, may well have been the oldest Student Prince that the world had ever laid eyes upon.

In 1969, Richard joined an ensemble group in a joyous production of Gulliver’s Travels at the Mermaid Theatre. This show was designed and directed by Sean Kenny. The choreographer was a young Japanese Canadian called David Toguri and, the following year, Richard auditioned for him once again and joined the cast of the British touring production of the American ‘hippie’ musical Hair. After Hair came Jesus Christ Superstar, which was directed by Jim Sharman.

The following year, 1973, Jim cast Richard in a Sam Shepard play at the Royal Court Theatre’s Theatre Upstairs. It was here that he met Richard Hartley, his music partner of 40 years. The Rocky Horror Show opened in June of the same year and, slowly but surely, became the biggest cult musical of all time.

Other highlights of Richard’s career are, of course, The Crystal Maze, a game show that warmed the autumn nights for Channel 4; the Child Catcher in the first stage production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; performing for the Queen in the gardens of Buckingham Palace upon Her Majesty’s 80th birthday, and playing Fagin in a New Zealand production of Oliver!

In a career that has spanned 50 years, Richard has acted with some of the biggest and best-known names in the industry and, lately, he has won over a new and younger crowd of fans as the voice of Lawrence Fletcher, the father of Phineas and Ferb, in the Disney cartoon series of the same name. He is 76 years of age and refuses to make eye contact with the Grim Reaper

Christopher Luscombe read English at Cambridge University. He began his career as an actor, spending seven years with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He went on to appear at the National Theatre, the Old Vic and in the West End. While at Stratford-upon-Avon, he devised and directed The Shakespeare Revue with Malcolm McKee, and this transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre in London. His subsequent productions at Stratford include Twelfth Night, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing, the last two transferring to Chichester Festival Theatre and then to the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. He is an Associate Artist of the RSC. His other directing credits in London include Star Quality and The Madness of George III (Apollo); Home and Beauty (Lyric); Fascinating Aïda (Harold Pinter – Olivier Award nomination for Best Entertainment); The Comedy of Errors and The Merry Wives of Windsor (Shakespeare’s Globe); Nell Gwynn (Shakespeare’s Globe and Apollo – Olivier Award for Best New Comedy); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Regent’s Park); Enjoy (Gielgud); Alphabetical Order (Hampstead); When We Are Married (Garrick – Olivier Award nomination for Best Revival); Travels With My Aunt (Menier Chocolate Factory); Spamalot (Playhouse) and Private Lives (Ambassadors). Regional and international credits include Masterpieces (Birmingham); Little Shop of Horrors and The History Boys (Leeds); Hobson’s Choice (Sheffield); Hay Fever (Minneapolis); Henry V and Nell Gwynn (Chicago); While The Sun Shines and The Argument (Bath); The Winter’s Tale (Cincinnati); Gigi (West Green); Gypsy (Tokyo) and tours of The Importance of Being Earnest, Tell Me on a Sunday, The Lady in the Van, Candida, Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, Single Spies, Admission: One Shilling, Dandy Dick, Blue/Orange and The Nightingales. His production of The Rocky Horror Show has been running for the last eighteen years. It has completed numerous seasons in the West End and played all over the world. His operatic work includes Candide, Falstaff (Broadway World nomination for Best New Opera Production), The Yeomen of the Guard and Tosca (Grange Festival); Sweeney Todd (Bergen National Opera); Pagliacci (Opera Ensemble) and Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Garsington Opera). He returns to Garsington next year for L’Elisir d’Amore and the following year he will direct Die Zauberflöte for Santa Fe Opera.

Theatre credits include: Nell Gwynn (Apollo Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, UK Tour and Chicago Shakespeare Theatre), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Old Vic, Cambridge and Prince of Wales Theatres); The Mikado (Cambridge and Prince of Wales Theatres); Copacabana (Prince of Wales Theatre, London and UK tour); Babes in the Wood, Cinderella, Dick Whittington, Snow White, Goldilocks (London Palladium); A Little Night Music (UK tour); Company (UK tour); Nymph Errant, Lady Windermere’s Fan, Lock Up Your Daughters, Divorce Me Darling (Chichester – TMA Award); Babes in Arms (Chichester and West End); The Best of Times (Vaudeville Theatre, London); Mack and Mabel (European premiere); Lady in the Dark (European premiere); The Boyfriend (UK tour); Spamalot (National Tour); Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, The Comedy of Errors, As You Like It (New Shakespeare Company); The Mystery of Irma Vep, Sister Mary Ignatius (Ambassador’s Theatre) Full Circle (UK tour); Naked Justice (UK tour); Frankenstein (Royal Ballet); Symphony in Waves (Dutch National Ballet); The Merry Widow (Carl Rosa Company); Footnotes (Nederlands Dans Theater); Window and Sleeping Birds (Rambert); Cher- The Farewell Tour; Cher at Caesars Palace, Cher- the Dressed to Kill Tour.

Film and television credits include: Young Alexander, Boadicea, Telephone Detectives and Cher – The Farewell Tour.

Awards include a Primetime Emmy Award and 4 Olivier Award nominations.

After leaving Central School of Art and Design, London, with a diploma in 1972, Sue spent two years at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow.

Since then, she has designed productions for most of the leading theatre, opera and ballet companies in the UK, and many abroad. She created the costumes for the original cult The Rocky Horror Show, stage and film.

Other film credits include: Peter Greenaway’s The Draughtsman’s Contract and Julien Temple’s Absolute Beginners. Her production (set and costume) credits include: designs for The Barber of Seville (Scottish Opera); The Thieving Magpie and The Duenna (Opera North); Christmas Eve (ENO); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (RSC, Stratford-upon-Avon and Stockholm); Cabaret (Donmar Warehouse); The Relapse (Royal National Theatre); Alice in Wonderland and The Nutcracker (English National Ballet) and Sylvia (Birmingham Royal Ballet).

Costume designs include: Guys and Dolls (Royal National Theatre); Porgy and Bess and Carmen (Glyndebourne); La fanciulla del West (La Scala, Milan); The Mikado and The Love for Three Oranges (ENO); The Canterville Ghost (ENB); Lohengrin (Bayreuth); Into the Woods (Old Vic); The Planets (Royal Ballet); Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Berlin) and Roman Polanski’s Dance of the Vampires (Vienna, Berlin). More recently, costumes for David Bintley’s Aladdin, a three-act ballet (Tokyo, Birmingham Royal Ballet); The King and I (Chatelet Paris, Chicago Opera); Alice in Wonderland (Pittsburgh Ballet); Welsh National Opera’s Figaro Trilogy. (Cardiff and Geneva) and Carmen (Dallas Opera).

She is one of few theatre designers to be a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) and, in 2007, was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty The Queen for Services to Drama

Nathan M. Wright is a nominated Artistic Director & Choreographer, working extensively in Large Scale Events, Film & Television and Musical Theatre.

Theatre credits include: The Rocky Horror Show – South Africa, Working Title (New Musical) Choreographer, Aspects of Love (Hayes Theatre) Musical Staging/ Producer, Games For Lovers (The Vaults Waterloo), Crazy For You (Watermill Theatre & UK Tour), The Rocky Horror Show UK Tour 2013/16/19 & 21, High Society (The Old Vic – WhatsOnStage and Broadway World nominations for Best Choreography), The Rocky Horror Show (The Playhouse – Broadway World Nomination for Best Choreography), Xanadu (Southwark Playhouse), Fing’s Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be (Stratford East), The Tailor Made Man (Arts Theatre – Broadway World Nomination for Best Choreography), Sweet Smell of Success (Arcola – What’s Onstage Nomination for Best Choreography), The Rocky Horror Show 2014/15/18 – Australian Productions), Director/ Choreographer – Xanadu (Hayes Theatre – Broadway World nominations for Best Choreography), Guys and Dolls (TPC), Avenue Q (Arts Asia Pacific – Helpmann & Green Room Award Nominations for Best Choreography), Gutenberg! The Musical (Neil Gooding Productions – Helpmann Award Nomination for Best Choreography), Breast Wishes (Bien Etre Productions), Not Quite Out of The Woods and Pennies’ from Kevin (Sydney Theatre Company).

Events include: Choreographer – Dubai Expo 2021, Choreographer – AFL Grand final Halftime show, Associate Director 48th National Day Celebrations – Abu Dhabi, The Head of Choreography & Staging for the 2018 Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony, the Artistic Director for both Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, Director of Mass Choreography for the 2014 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Sochi and the Director of Choreography for John Lewis’ 150th Anniversary. As a Mass Choreographer, the 2015 Opening Ceremony of The Pacific Games – Papua New Guinea, The Opening and Closing Ceremonies of both London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games; The 2010 Commonwealth Games Delhi Handover Ceremony, Oman’s National Day, and director of the Finale Segment in the Closing Ceremony for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Film credits include: Elvis (Pre-Production), ‘The Wicked Faced Boy’ in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, Motion Capture Artist on the Academy Award winning film Happy Feet and Associate Choreographer on Baz Luhrmann’s, The Great Gatsby.

Television credits include: BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, So You Think You Can Dance (Australia), ITV’s Breathless, The 2010 Helpmann Awards, Sydney & Melbourne Comedy Festivals.

Nick’s West End designs include: The Glenn Miller Story (London Coliseum); Nell Gwynn (Apollo Theatre); La Cage aux Folles (Playhouse Theatre – Olivier Award winner of Best Musical Revival 2009, which transferred to Broadway – Tony Award nomination for Best Lighting and Tony Award winner of Best Musical); Forbidden Broadway (Vaudeville Theatre); Monty Python’s Spamalot (Playhouse Theatre); Simply the Best (Savoy Theatre); Damon Albarn’s Monkey: Journey to the West (Royal Opera House, Lincoln Center NY, Paris & the O2); Whistle Down the Wind (Palace Theatre & US tour); Fiddler on the Roof; Scrooge (London Palladium); Mystery of Charles Dickens (West End, UK Tour & Broadway); Derren Brown: Something Wicked This Way Comes.

UK tours include: Saturday Night Fever, The Rocky Horror Show, Cilla the Musical, Ghost, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, The Glenn Miller Story, The Sound of Music, Jesus Christ Superstar, Monty Python’s Spamalot, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Blood Brothers, Starlight Express, Spend Spend Spend! Strictly Come Dancing: the Professionals, Armstrong and Miller – Live, Laughter in the Rain, Jekyll & Hyde and Guys and Dolls.

Other credits include: Beauty & The Beast (BB Productions, Germany); Cruel Intentions (Edinburgh Festival); Wizard of Oz (Birmingham Rep); Friends the Musical; Saturday Night Fever (UK Tour); The Nightingales; While the Sun Shines, Time and the Conways (Theatre Royal Bath); The Ladykillers, Witches of Eastwick, Sleuth, Ben Hur, Marriage of Figaro (Watermill Theatre); Mother Courage, The Seagull, The Heretic, A Dolls House, GlennGary Glenn Ross, Great Expectations, Faith Healer, Library Theatre Manchester; The Price, Our Man in Havana, Hound of the Baskervilles, Travesties (Nottingham Playhouse); Sweet Charity, Midsummer Songs, Mods and Rox, Guys and Dolls (New Wolsey Ipswich); The Recruiting Officer, The Maid of Butterworth (Theatre by the Lake Keswick).

Upcoming highlights include: Michael Jackson’s MJ (World Premiere); and The Who’s Tommy revival on Broadway; Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s Cinderella (World Premiere), and Steven Spielberg’s Back to the Future (World Premiere) in the West End.

Sound Design Award highlights: Oliver Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Broadway World Award, Green Room Award, Dora Award, Craig Noel Award, and the WhatsOnStage Award for Come from Away; Olivier Award for Memphis, Olivier Award for Merrily We Roll Along, Tony nomination for A Little Night Music, Tony nomination for End of the Rainbow, Olivier nomination for Bat Out of Hell, Olivier nomination for Top Hat, Olivier nomination for End of the Rainbow, and the Pro Sound Award for Sound Engineer of the Year.

West End Musical Design highlights: Prince of Egypt, & Juliet, Come from Away, Bat Out of Hell, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Strictly Ballroom, 42nd Street, Young Frankenstein, Wind in the Willows, Mrs Henderson Presents, Memphis, I Can’t Sing, In the Heights, Top Hat, Merrily We Roll Along, End of the Rainbow, Sweet Charity, A Little Night Music, Carousel, Little Shop of Horrors, and La Cage Aux Follies.

International Design highlights: Diana (Broadway), Summer (Broadway), Come from Away (Broadway), Bronx Tale (Broadway), Disney’s Hunchback Of Notre Dame (Worldwide), Spring Awakening (Broadway), Disney’s Little Mermaid (Worldwide), End of the Rainbow (Broadway), Disney’s Beauty & the Beast (Worldwide), A Little Night Music (Broadway), Secret Garden (New York), Clueless (New York), Sister Act (Worldwide), and Starlight Express (Bochum, Germany).

Emmy Award-winning composer Richard Hartley’s latest score is Great Expectations, Mike Newell’s new re-working of the Dickens classic, boasting a stellar cast including Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Jeremy Irvine, Holliday Grainger and Robbie Coltrane. This is the sixth time he’s collaborated with Newell – the others being Dance With a Stranger starring Miranda Richardson; An Awfully Big Adventure starring Hugh Grant; The Good Father, starring Anthony Hopkins; Bad Blood and Soursweet.

Other major credits include: Bertolucci’s Stealing Beauty starring Liv Tyler and Jeremy Irons; The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, starring Geoffrey Rush; Rogue Trader starring Ewan McGregor; Nicolas Roeg’s Bad Timing); The Van directed by Stephen Frears; A Thousand Acres, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Jessica Lange and Rough Magic, starring Russell Crowe and Bridget Fonda.

In total more than 50 features, including the cult The Rocky Horror Picture Show back in 1975, for which he wrote the incidental music and was music arranger, musical director and a member of the band. Originally recruited to help with auditions for the London production of Jesus Christ Superstar he struck up an immediate friendship with the director Jim Sharman and through him met Richard O’Brien. The three of them then went on to work together on Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror stage show at the Royal Court Theatre and its later sequel Shock Treatment (20th Century Fox) which was also developed into a film with songs composed by Richard O’Brien and Hartley.

He won an Emmy for his score for Hallmark’s landmark television film Alice in Wonderland, with an historic cast including Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Ustinov, Gene Wilder, Robbie Coltrane, Ben Kingsley, Miranda Richardson and Ken Dodd. Other major television credits include: Murderland starring Robbie Coltrane; The Lion in Winter, starring Glenn Close and Patrick Stewart, and was nominated for another Emmy for his score to Don Quixote, starring John Lithgow and Bob Hoskins.

Richard has provided the music for many prestigious stage productions at the National Theatre directed by Richard Eyre including: David Hare’s Amy’s View, Murmuring Judges, Absence of War, Christopher Hampton’s White Chameleon as well as Tennessee Williams’ Night of the Iguana and Sweet Bird of Youth.

He has also worked for the RSC, the Almeida, the Royal Court and the Theatre Royal Stratford East. It is 40 years since Richard met Richard O’Brien in a damp rehearsal room near Regent’s Park to work on The Unseen Hand by Sam Shepherd. How time flies…

Equally at home as a conductor, pianist and arranger, Greg’s diverse career has taken him all over the world working on a wide range of projects.

As a Musical Director, recent credits include: Goldilocks (London Palladium), Songs for Nobodies (Ambassadors Theatre), Snow White (London Palladium), Strictly Ballroom (Piccadilly Theatre), A Winter’s Tale (Rose Theatre), the Olivier award winning production of Dick Whittington at the London Palladium, Sister Act (UK tour + Monaco), CLD – The Real Lewis Carroll (Christchurch college, Oxford), Cinderella (London Palladium), Only the Brave(Wales Millennium Centre), Rocky Horror Show Live (Playhouse Theatre and Live European broadcast), Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Playhouse Theatre + London cast recording), Guys and Dolls (Chichester Festival Theatre), Chess (UK tour, Trieste and Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto), Hairspray (Shaftesbury Theatre), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (London Palladium, UK tour and Singapore), Shall We Dance? (Saddler’s Wells), Cole Porter’s Aladdin (Saddler’s Wells), The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Vaudeville Theatre.)

Arrangement credits include: Colored Lights (OCR), The Entertainer (UK tour), Club Tropicana (UK tour), The Rink(Southwark Playhouse),Twist and Shout (UK tour), Snow White, Jack and the Beanstalk + Cinderella (also composer of new scores – Theatre Royal, Newcastle) Adelaide Cabaret Festival 2015 (Australia), Christmas at St Pauls (St Paul Cathedral), Happy Days (UK tour), J’Accuse (Film score Petula Clark), Bugle Boy (UK tour), Satin & Steel (UK tour), The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (UK Tour), Monte-Carlo Circus Festival, (Monaco), A Chorus Line (Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage), The Ballad of Benny Junior (Riverside studios), The reconstruction of the score for Cole Porter’s Aladdin (Sadler’s Wells), Dan Koeks album “High”, The 175th anniversary of the Theatre Royal Newcastle, Shout! (West End and UK tour), Noel and Gertie (UK tour) and numerous workshops of new works including Leopard Song, The Canary Girls, The Best of Friends, Gone but Not Forgotten, Hansel & Gretel (also composer), and Celebration Christmas.

Broadcast credits include: The Great Gatsby (streamed from Cadogan Hall), The Queens Christmas broadcast (BBC 2020), The Rocky Horror Picture Show Live (European Cinema Broadcast + Sky Arts), Blue Peter, Woman’s Hour, Wetten Das (Live German Broadcast), Christmas at St Pauls (Classic FM).

In collaboration with writer/producer Matt Parry, Greg has conducted recordings of Sheherazade (Starring Brian Blessed and Rory Bremner), Swan lake and Peer Gynt for the melodramatic Productions label. These large scale projects are designed to reintroduce children to classical music and exposure young people to orchestras. For more details visit www.melodramaticproductions.com

In 2017, Greg was invited to perform for HRH Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace with Australian tenor and long-term collaborator Dan Koek.

Sue Blane and Christopher Porter are happy to have been associates for 33 years with 30 years on ‘The Rocky Horror Show’ worldwide and including other West End musicals and operas.

After graduating from Wimbledon School of Art followed by two years working with ENO, Darren started his company, The Wig Room in 1993.

Productions include: Ghost, Tanz der Vampire, Sister Act (Berlin), Le Bal des Vampires (Paris), Nutcracker, Hansel & Gretel & Highland Fling (Scottish Ballet), American Psycho, Measure for Measure, The Original Chinese Conjuror & Platonov (Almeida), Matthew Bourne’s The Red Shoes, Sleeping Beauty, The Car Man, Swan Lake & Cinderella (Tours), Abigail’s Party (Wyndhams), School for Scandal (Barbican), Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Gielgud), Sister Act (World Premiere London, UK Tour, Germany, Vienna, Milan, Paris, Scheveningen, & Barcelona), Marguerite, The Sea, The Country Wife, Hay Fever and Acorn Antiques(Haymarket), Flashdance, High Society & Calamity Jane (Shaftesbury), Cabaret (Lyric), On Your Toes & Follies (Royal Festival Hall), Mack & Mabel (Criterion), West Side Story, Maskerade & Greek Passion (Bregenz Festspiele), Oliver! (Tivoli Gardens), Rocky Horror (UK Tours 1998-2021). The Wig Room Ltd is about to embark on its 15th season with Grange Park Opera. Future Projects include: Wicked (Hamburg), Bagdad Café (The Old Vic), The Midnight Bell (New Adventures).

Annabelle is a Sussex based director who specialises in Musical Theatre. She enjoys working on new writing, reimagined classics and distinctive theatrical experiences.

She is fresh from her role as Resident Director on the international tour of Love Never Dies. Her directing skills developed working as Resident Director to Luke Sheppard on Spring Awakening and Assistant Director to Andy Fickman on Heathers.

She has directed at venues such as The Other Palace, Southwark Playhouse, Hope Mill Theatre and The Turbine Theatre. She is also a regular, visiting Director within UK drama schools.

In addition, Annabelle is a trainee Intimacy Coordinator for both theatre and television and has worked on productions for Netflix and Sky Cinema.