Review: Life: LIVE!, by Lucy McCormick, Fierce Festival, Birmingham (UK), 19 October 2019

Abstract

To be a cult sensation you must aim for Hollywood-level stardom. In King Kong (1933), Fay Wray – who has spent the majority of her screen time screaming hysterically – dangles precariously as she is carried up the Empire State Building by the giant gorilla. This image is evoked by Dr Frank-N-Furter (‘What ever happened to Fay Wray? That delicate satin draped frame’) in an elaborately shonky ‘floor show’, which becomes the doomed finale of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Wet from ‘absolute pleasure’ in the pool, his mascara and signature heart tattoo have smeared across his skin as he is carried by Rocky up the cardboard RKO Tower, which topples and plunges them both a few feet to their deaths. King Kong used the most advanced stop-motion and model-building techniques of the day in scenes which, to a twenty-first century audience, add a layer of ridiculousness to the still heart-wrenching love story. In The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the possibilities of what can be achieved by centring fantasy on a tight budget and schlocky-horror techniques means the work is both parody and tribute, never mocking what it loves but rather reworking it.