Take a jump to the left....

Ahh, that's better. Several (more than several) hours of sleep, a shower and a walk and I feel soooo much better.

Why? I hear you asking, Why were you so tired? Too tired, in fact, to tell us about it?

Well, my lovelies, on Friday night I did one of my all time favourite things (no, not that! unfortunately). On Friday night I went to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Now I am a bit of a fan, not a fanatic - I don't dress up or wear make-up, but I do know the words to the songs and how to do the timewarp and most of the shoutbacks to the dialogue. So, as I said, I'm a bit of a fan.

A couple of weeks ago, I went into Milan to have coffee with Ch and during the walk after we came across the cinema showing the film. It turned out that Ch was a Rocky virgin so we booked immediately. I had to change one of my classes but, as I haven't done that before, I didn't feel particularly guilty about it. I warned her it might be a bit weird, what with it having men dressed in stocking and suspenders and being a musical, but she was game. We were told the film started at 10pm and to be there at 9:30pm.

Of course, it had to be snowing when I arrived in Milan but luckily it stopped during the fifteen minute walk to the cinema. Unfortunately the freezing temperatures in no way induced the cinema to open it's doors early so I had to hang around for a good twenty minutes in the cold wondering if this was a good idea. There were other people around, and it was a mixed crowd but no-one seemed particularly dressed up, unlike showings I've been to elsewhere - but then, this is the middle of winter in Italy! Ch arrived at 9:30pm and the doors opened BUT only selected people were being allowed in (god only knows why), still Ch reminded them we had booked and we were in!

The cinema itself is a long thin room with hardly any rake (slope towards the screen) and we were a far way back - this turned out to be good. We got a drink, found our seats, bought our participation bags (rice, confetti, surgical masks, newspaper, latex glove, rattle and playing card) and had a good look around us. Suddenly there were lots of people dressed as characters from the film and I felt a warm glow of antici.........pation.

10pm came and went, there was terrible singing via the PA system, the screen showed stills from the film so I was able to name the characters for Ch as well as teach her the timewarp (sitting down) and warn her I would be singing throughout. Finally, at about 10:30 someone goes on stage and starts some sort of compere thing, pulling Rocky virgins on-stage to have fun with and at them. This went on a little too long for me, not only because it was in Italian (naturally) but because I don't like that sort of thing anyway. Finally it finished and I thought we were going to get down to the film, but Oh no, instead we had the 20th Century Fox intro and music (about six times) before going into some shortened songs sung by animal characters (possibly from Madagasca?).

Finally, at about 11pm the film started. And it was good. The people who were dressed up made sure everyone participated (spraying water over everyone during the rain scene, shouting out the shoutbacks, etc.) and getting everyone up to do the timewarp.

Now here's what was new to me. They had live 'actors' who acted out the scenes along with the film in front of the film. I've heard of this but I hadn't ever seen it before - and I have to say I don't really approve. They were dedicated and some of them were good but I felt it detracted from the film itself. I guess it's the same argument about films made from books, if you read the book first generally the film isn't as good but if you read the book after seeing the film, you generally prefer the film.

Then, just as things were swinging along nicely, they had an interval! So people could smoke supposedly. I have to say, it completely ruined the atmosphere. When the film started again (just ten minutes later) the energy had disappeared. The 'actors' and participation-ists worked just as hard but the heart had gone out of the audience.

The film actually finished at 12:45 and people were more than happy to be leaving especially as most public transport shuts down at 11:30pm. I had expected the film to end at about 11:30 and both Ch and I were worried about getting back to hers which is the other side of the city. Luckily the circular bus was still running and that combined with a twenty minute walk got us in at 1:45. I was up again at 7am and home by 9:30am to teach at 10:30am.

So that's why I was so tired. Now I know what's it like there, I might be tempted to go again but only if I know I don't have to get up the next morning!

BTW Ch said she enjoyed it, and she remembered the tag-line "Give yourself over to absolute pleasure"