Susan Pepperell column: City celebration rocks its staid old reputation - Riff Raff Statue > Victoria Street > Hamilton

When that happens, you can guarantee it's not going to be anything slightly ordinary. Last night I did the Time Warp down Victoria St. I'm sure it wasn't pretty but it was such a stupidly, wacky, pointless and fantastically silly thing to do, how could I not?

You just don't turn down opportunities like that. There hasn't been something this entertaining in Victoria St since Graeme Cairns declared the McGillicuddy Serious Party dead and buried, put himself in stocks in Garden Place, cut off all his hair then got everyone to throw rotten tomatoes at him as punishment for not getting elected. The rest of us should have been in the stocks but there you go.

Anyway it's not the opportunity to do the Time Warp down the main street that makes me proud. I suspect I may well have been able to do that on my own were it not for an irrational fear of making an idiot of myself. It's the sheer Hamilton contrariness of it all.

It is incredibly amusing that the decision to allow a statue of Riff Raff as a tribute to its Hamilton-bred creator Richard O'Brien is the most momentous achievement of the previous council, barring voting themselves handsome pay rises.

When some poor person is delegated to write the next chapter in Hamilton's funny old history, this year should be underlined in red to mark it out as one of the city's oddest. It was the year we wouldn't allow private sex workers to operate in the suburbs, although no one has quite worked out how to stop them, and it was the year we put up a statue of a film character everyone is calling a transvestite in the main street. The fact he's actually a strangely dressed butler seems to have eluded the anti-brigade but if they want him to be known as a transvestite I don't think anyone's going to complain.

And yes, the Waikato Times has had prostitutes and transvestites on the front page and some of you haven't liked it one little bit.

But you win some, you lose some and this is the great thing about Hamilton – sometimes we just get it and to hell with the rest of civilisation or anything else.

For anyone who doesn't get it, O'Brien made a comment this week about the statue that summed up exactly what it's all about. He said he hoped it would inspire young, creative people to live their dreams against the odds: "Something that leads them to say `oh stuff it, I'll do it anyway'."

In the much-ridiculed lengthy, uninspiring and mediocrity-driven search for a slogan that sums up Hamilton, it's taken someone who left town decades ago to come up with the perfect epithet.

We've never done any good being known for fountains, happenings or exceeding expectations but we haven't done badly with people adopting O'Brien's sentiments. It's the perfect stick-it-up-them statement we've been scratching around in all the wrong places for. Who knows how many statues we could have around Riff Raff in a few years if we take the advice to heart?

So what can we do to ensure the enthusiasm generated by the statue unveiling isn't an isolated event? I have an idea to start us all off: how about an annual Rocky Horror festival? It could include outdoor screenings of the movie, best-dressed competitions, Time Warp re-enactments in Victoria St, appearances by original film cast members, lectures, art shows, street theatre and "oh stuff it" scholarships to help young people achieve their dreams.

Think what The Sound of Music has done for Salzburg and you can't go far wrong.

We have the perfect opportunity to kick it off next year with plans to stage the 30th anniversary production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show – cash permitting.

Here's an off-the-wall idea: cast the prime minister as the narrator. Not strictly an original idea I realise, but if it's good enough for Sir Rob Muldoon, Helen Clark will certainly be up to it. Born and bred in the Waikato, it seems only fitting.

These are exciting times for our town. Recently we went some way to finally recognising Frank Sargeson, one of New Zealand's greatest literary icons, was born and bred here. And he happened to be gay. Now we're honouring a man who wrote one of the greatest musicals ever. And it just happens to include transvestites. Way to go, Hamilton!

Wellington can have Peter Jackson and Weta Workshops, we've got Richard O'Brien and Riff Raff.

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