Best night ever!!!

 It's the first time I've uploaded a video so I'm not sure if it will work. Watch this space.

I had a couple of days off on Thursday and Friday. Not much excitement on the Thursday. I went to the garden centre to buy some soil and added said soil to my holly bushes that were getting blown over by the wind. I did warn you it wasn't exciting. 

The other super exciting thing I did was get my z-hoses out of the garage. I know you are jealous of this excitement, but you will just have to cope.

Friday was the big day, a day I'd been waiting for for months. It's the 50th Anniversary of the Rocky Horror Show and a 'midnight showing' was coming to Brighton.

Back in my teens Rocky Horror Show was huge. There would be Rocky Horror Show parties and events all the time. People had been to see Rocky Horror Show at the cinema 200 times! I never really knew why they had seen it so often, though I'd watched my video of it many times. It never came to the cinema locally.

I was going with my brother as there was a hard 'no' from husband - and as it turns out brothers girlfriend. But we'd both loved it back in the 80's.

As it was the 50th Anniversary some of the cast were doing a QA session at the opening. I was particularly interested to see this as back in the days when I did acting Patricia Quinn who played Magenta was in one of the TV things that I did. She was going to be doing the QA.

I was unsure what to do about dressing up - I didn't know if anybody else would. So I kept it low key. Wearing Black DM's with drainpipe trousers - a long black shirt and a jacket. I took a gold sequinned bow tie in my hand bag 'just in case'.

Before the film I met brother in Brighton and we had a lovely supper at Food for Friends. I have to say it was totally vegetarian and totally yummy. I can recommend it. Now I'm no longer vegetarian and wasn't sure if I'd like it - but I have to say it was so yummy I want to go back. However, chances of getting my 'bacon makes everything better' husband to go to a vegetarian restaurant is a slim chance.

On my way to the restaurant I was mesmerised by something I saw in the Lanes - it was basically an art shop absolutely covered with paint. You basically go in there and throw paint at walls and canvasses for an hour. Totally my kinda thing. I popped in for details and to double check you could take wine with you. Now I know it's not going to be the kinda thing of anybody else I know. So I'm saving it up for my Birthday when my family will have to join me whether they want to or not. Bish bash bosh. Not long to wait!

After our meal we headed off to the theatre. I needn't have worried if people were going to dress up. There were literally hundreds of people in full costume. I pulled brother over and rapidly attached my gold bow tie.

I was amazed actually I assumed the audience would have been old farts like myself, reliving their youth. However, clearly Rocky Horror has been picked up by the yoofs - or certainly by the LGBT+ community. It was great not to have to enjoy it with a bunch of crusties (like myself).

Brother had got us great seats. Centre of the circle. This meant that we had a great view of the film, of the shadow cast... The shadow cast is where they have a bunch of randoms on stage under the film re-inacting what's going on on screen. I have to say their antics were almost better than the film at times.

The QA session itself was very painful, Patricia Quinn clearly didn't want to be there, the other two (Brad and Columbia spent there whole time trying to manage her responses). Brother and I had a whispered conversation, if this was all that it was going to be we would head off at interval.

AND THEN THE FILM STARTED. From the first second it was amazing. We hadn't spotted the goody bags, but everybody else had - in a way I am pleased because it meant we could just watch the utter chaos that went on.

We were old hands at the audience call outs so joined in with that and I had the time of my life doing the Time Warp, but I spent most of the time belly laughing at the audience and the shadow crew.

My favourite shadow queue moment is when Rocky comes alive and the ray gun comes down to fire lasers at him to bring him to life. The shadow queue reinacted this with somebody holding a fake laser gun on the end of a piece of string, when the lasers came down instead 4 ribbsons came falling from the fake laser, another member of the shadow crew then started shaking the fake laser so the ribbons were shaking. 

When Columbia in the film does her tap dance the real Columbia (Nel Campbell) joined the shadow crew to do the dance on stage. Quite remarkable considering she's 74 - I'm totally in awe of her. What a star. 

By the end of film playing cards had been thrown, football rattles rattled, newspapers put on heads, rubber gloves put on, glow sticks waved and - oh so many - loo rolls had been thrown across the theatre. It was wonderful and joyful chaos.

This week's video gives you a short snippet of the wonderful, amazing, chaos. I literally can't remember the last time I laughed so hard and for so long. 

When it finished I wanted to shout 'again again'. I spent the whole weekend trying to find another showing. I mentioned it to friends and we've got plans for halloween, having researched where it's most likely to be shown. Our flights are already booked!

(PS: my arthritic knees were absolutely shattered on Saturday - perhaps Time Warp one thing too many - but it will not stop me next time).