Riff Raff's here and Hamilton rocks

IT'S TIME: This was the Time Warp, Hamilton style, as the city's Rocky Horror Picture Show party celebrated the arrival of Riff Raff (below) today. (JEFF BRASS / Waikato Times)

Source:  http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/waikatotimes/0,2106,3110114a6004,00.html

27 November 2004 
By LUCY REED AND SUSAN PEPPERELL

To a burst of fireworks, a statue of Riff Raff was saluted by 4000 people in Hamilton this morning with a pelvic thrust . . . and a jump to the left.

High above them in Victoria St the man who created the Rocky Horror Picture Show legend, Richard O'Brien, then led his audience in an after-midnight mass version of the film's Time Warp dance.

The dance warmed up the cross dressers who shivered in their fishnets as they prepared for the party to celebrate the city's connections to the cult classic.

O'Brien returned to the city from England to unveil the statue of Riff Raff – the butler he played in the movie he wrote.

The Hamilton City Council-organised street entertainment started from 10.30pm and included fire jugglers and excerpts from the show, performed by Riverlea Theatre to a blocked-off south end of Victoria St.

It was almost 30 years ago that The Rocky Horror Picture Show had its premiere but it's taken that long for Hamilton to recognise that O'Brien got his inspiration from his time spent as a hairdresser next to the now demolished Embassy Theatre.

When he unveiled the statue on the site of the old theatre his audience was largely dressed in stilettos, fishnet stockings, suspenders and bright feather boas.

As street performers had kept the crowd entertained before the main event Geoff Armstrong reapplied his makeup. His velvet mini-skirt ended where his thighs began as he declared he would "Time Warp the night away, baby".

It was a family affair for the McNaughtens who each dressed as a Rocky Horror show character. Victoria McNaughten said O'Brien was her hero.

Her mother Jane said she had seen the movie so many times Riff Raff's image was embedded in her brain.

Victoria said she liked Rocky Horror because so many different people from so many different walks of life could meet together and have a chance to "let it all out and go crazy . . . "

"It's such a cult – it's like we are all different but we're all the same."

The city council presented a life-sized tuatara to Richard O'Brien in recognition of his promotion of the city. In return O'Brien presented a mounted saxophone to Mark Servian, who initiated the idea of the statue.

O'Brien, clearly emotional, said: "Who would have thought an arrested development would lead to this?"

Servian came up with the idea for Riff Raff four years ago. He gained $100,000 sponsorship for the statue from the Perry Foundation with the help of the city council's marketing department. The statue was designed by Weta Workshop in Wellington.