Heather Moulson

Hello Poetry Lovers

Welcome back to our Poetry Basket review. Shall we see who’s in the Poetry Basket today?

And what a find! Behind The Curtain written by Martin Fitzgibbon, the original drummer in The Rocky Horror Show.

Martin shares incredible and delightful detail of the early days of this innovative musical written by Richard O’Brien in 1973.

We are taken back to the Theatre Upstairs at the Royal Court, and are blown away with an astonishing story of an incredible production that’s still exciting and notorious 50 years later!

Well, I don’t know about you, but I can still recall that era and how controversial that wonderful show was! I came to it a bit later in ‘74 at the Kings Road Theatre. (Thanks, Mum and Dad!). I think they set out to give me some culture, not change my life! They had a lot to answer for!!

Besides retelling this phenomenon, it also unravels a very personal story. Not to mention some fascinating insights into the music world. Read on for a hot review!

Behind The Curtain

Martin Fitzgibbon’s book Behind The Curtain gives us a fascinating account of the iconic and incredible Rocky Horror Show. However, at a later point, it offers up more than that.  Fitzgibbon’s book reveals so much about the music world, making it insightful and absorbing. 

This is a well paced story, starting with Richard Hartley who needed a quiet drummer, a concept a drummer would understand.    This was for a proposed musical at the Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court.  Twenty pounds a week, a very respectable salary in 1973.  So many iconic names are mentioned early in the book, with Hartley on keyboards, Count Ian Blair on guitars, Dave Channing on bass and saxophone, working on unique musical numbers. 

The writer’s first meetings with Tim Curry, Patricia Quinn, Rayner Bourton, little Nell, and of course Richard O’Brien, among others are absorbing. 

Cleverly alternating the chapters with Fitzgibbon’s West London upbringing, he makes it delightfully nostalgic without being sentimental.  Succinctly recalling a now vanished tight community, tea leaves in abundance and ice inside windows. These recollections will strike a chord with most of us. 

Easing smoothly back into Rocky Horror, Fitzgibbon brings back to life the opening of the black painted doors upstairs at the Royal Court, and Brian Thomson’s ingenious condemned cinema set.  We feel the atmosphere of nine actors and four musicians, and the band squeezed behind the screen, backlit for the infamous Time Warp.

In the same beat(!), we are given insight into Fitzgibbon’s school days and brutal teachers, and a great anecdote about Vidal Sassoon.  With Uncle Ron teaching Fitzgibbon the drums, and apprenticing in a factory, he takes us flawlessly to a young boy’s musical ambitions and reopens the year of 1967 to us. 

With detailed direction from genius Jim Sharman, the writer describes the piecing of an incredible musical production as the cast rehearsed.  Microphone wires, and awkward surgical gloves are taken full on, before emerging from the cramped dressing room, made up and costume ready. The magic of Tim Curry’s Frank-n-Furter unravels amongst other incredible and vibrant characters.  

 

Fitzgibbon takes us back to Saturday 16th June 1973 where the first preview took place at the Royal Court. The ‘tamer’ audience adored it and then Tuesday 19th June was the magical opening, against a backdrop of heavy rain. 

The first night party at the Worlds End’s Furniture Cave was a clever choice by producer Michael White.  We are present at this unforgettable event, and share the glowing reviews and show sellout, and an extension of the three-week run with celebrity attendance.  

The second night brings Jonathan King proposing recording a soundtrack.  The cast and musicians record the album at Sarm Studios.

The last show at the Theatre Upstairs scheduled for 20th July, was thwarted. With Rocky and hazardous glitter, and Mick Jagger in the audience – the show does not go on! 

Fitzgibbon joined his first proper band Crims People, playing soul and Motown numbers and gigging around the East End.  There are reflections of the (much missed) Marquee and 100 Club, and cutting their first record at Regent Street Studios at the age of 16.  There is so much rich material unravelled, pirate stations, girls in backs of vans, people spotting in La Gioconda Café, Soho.  Sharply focused snapshots of another world.  

In July ’73, The Rocky Horror Show moved to the condemned Classic cinema nearby, after a brief break. Belinda Sinclair replaced Julie Covington and a second first night party takes place.  This included a priceless insult to attendee Tenessee Williams.    

There are many incredible people mentioned in this absorbing account, including Bowie and Lou Reed who attended the midnight performances that were a huge success with a real party atmosphere.   We as readers are pulled in as attendees.

Ziggy Byfield and Angela Bruce supplied terror as pre-show ghouls, and seven weeks into the run, Rayner Bourton left for the Citizens Theatre.  Andy Bradford was an unsuccessful replacement before he went on to find his own success. 

The former Esseldo Cinema became the Kings Road Theatre and Rocky Horror’s third home. This struck a personal chord for me as I saw this phenomenon there in ’74, with Philip Sayer and Ben Bazell.  The band were put in a charmless sound room and located at the end of a long corridor. 

As ’74 moved on, band members were replaced and Fitzgibbon sensed the beginning of the end. It was clear that the Theatre Upstairs was the most golden time, and 1973 had been ready for Rocky to emerge. Now Rocky Horror was on the tourist route and coach-loads pulled up nightly.    

With stage fright nerves waiting in the wings for our drummer, and symptoms of what we now know as OCD, there was a complete lack of support from the Kings Road theatre staff, and we are reminded how society in general once treated mental illness.  A very different time indeed.  

Fitzgibbon gives an acknowledgement to these great names and cast, including Sue Blane, Patricia Quinn, Little Nell, Tim Curry, Richard O’Brien, Rayner Bourton, Jim Sharman,  Paddy O’Hagan, Christopher Malcolm and Belinda Sinclair. 

 From Chapter Twelve Fitzgibbon’s book takes a very different turn. It’s not a better or  worse direction, just different.  Leaving Rocky Horror for good, and being persistent, (ink blots were involved) the writer was finally diagnosed with severe depression.  So, not only is this an insight into a musician, but an inspiring story of turmoil and struggle and triumph. 

A successful career as a rep, we enjoy the glory days of expensive hotels and limitless expense accounts, plus some interesting characters.  Self-respect makes a return for Fitzgibbon, and new friends.  He briefly encounters Richard Hartley again, before moving to the West Country.

Unsuspectingly, fate brings Fitzgibbon’s drums back to him, taking residence in a barn.  He picks up his drumsticks again after a decade and a half, and we feel our drummer’s magic returning.  Joining a local Gloucester band, delightful eccentrics are mentioned, such as Christie Arthur and Robbie Fisher.   Fitzgibbon quits his job and embraces being a full-time musician again.  We are cheering at this point! 

A great and gritty account of rough pubs and festivals, and the hallowed Fairport Convention.  We’re taken across Europe with great anecdotes, including an interesting incident with an organ, plus beer breakfasts (bliss!) in the Netherlands. Along this journey, we get a clear picture of a drummer’s side of the music business. Our trip ends when the exciting band Jigantics are formed with even stronger musicians. 

Behind the Curtain is uplifting, poignant, inspiring and generously detailed. This book is well worth a read.   Thanks for sharing your story, Martin.

Available on Amazon, treat yourselves to a copy.

Thanks for tuning in, PL’s, and reading my review of Martin’s terrific book.

We’ll be back with more poetry action real soon….