THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW AT DOMINION THEATRE, LDN

The Rocky Horror Picture Show 50th Anniversary Spectacular comes to London's Dominion Theatre on April 19, 2026.

 

The Grandma and her family have been invited to enjoy this musical which is one of the most popular in London.

The Rocky Horror Show is a musical with music, lyrics and book by Richard O'Brien. A humorous tribute to various B movies associated with the science fiction and horror genres from the 1930s to the early 1960s, the musical tells the story of a newly engaged couple getting caught in a storm and coming to the home of a mad transvestite scientist, Dr Frank-N-Furter, unveiling his new creation, Rocky, a sort of Frankenstein-style monster in the form of an artificially made, fully grown, physically perfect muscle man.

The show was produced and directed by Jim Sharman. The original London production of the musical was premiered at the Royal Court Theatre (Upstairs) on 19 June 1973 (after two previews on 16 and 18 June 1973). It later moved to several other locations in London and closed on 13 September 1980. The show ran for a total of 2,960 performances in London and won the 1973 Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Musical. Songs in the musical include Time Warp and Sweet Transvestite (co-written by O'Brien and Richard Hartley), while the costumes were designed by Sue Blane. 

Its 1974 debut in the US in Los Angeles had a successful nine-month run, but its 1975 Broadway debut at the Belasco Theatre lasted only three previews and forty-five showings, despite earning one Tony nomination and three Drama Desk nominations. Various international productions have since spanned across six continents as well as West End and Broadway revivals and eight UK tours. 

In 1991, it was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival. Actor Tim Curry, who originated the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, became particularly associated with the musical.

The musical was adapted into the 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, starring O'Brien as Riff Raff, with Curry also reprising his role; the film has the longest-running release in film history. 

In 2016, it was adapted into the television film The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again. The musical was ranked eighth in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals", and it was one of eight British musicals featured on a commemorative stamp issued by the Royal Mail in 2011.

Beyond its cult status, The Rocky Horror Show is also widely said to have been an influence on countercultural and sexual liberation movements that followed on from the 1960s. It was one of the first popular musicals to depict fluid sexuality during a time of division between generations and a lack of sexual difference acceptance. Like the film adaptation, the musical is noted for a long-running tradition of audience participation through call-back lines and attending dressed up as characters from the show.

On the 50th anniversary of the musical in 2023, BBC News states that since debuting in London in 1973 the production has been performed in 20 different languages and been seen by 30 million people globally.

Between acting jobs in the early 1970s, Richard O'Brien, wrote The Rocky Horror Show to keep himself busy on winter evenings. Since his youth, he had developed a passion for science fiction and B horror movies; he wanted to combine elements of the unintentional humour of B horror movies, portentous dialogue of schlock-horror, Steve Reeves muscle films, and fifties rock and roll into The Rocky Horror Show.

The impact at the Royal Court Upstairs allowed the production be transferred to the 230-seat Chelsea Classic Cinema nearby on Kings Road from 14 August 1973 to 20 October 1973.

Rocky Horror found a quasi-permanent home at the 500-seat King's Road Theatre -another cinema house, even further down Kings Road- from 3 November 1973. The show received praise from London theatre critics and won the 1973 Evening Standard Award for Best Musical. When Richard O'Brien played Riff Raff in the original Broadway production of Rocky Horror in 1975, Robert Longden took over the role in London.

The show's run at the King's Road Theatre ended on 31 March 1979; it then transferred to the Comedy Theatre (now the Harold Pinter Theatre) in the West End to begin performances on 6 April 1979. At the new venue, Rocky Horror required some restaging, for the Comedy was the first theatre at which the musical had played that possessed a traditional proscenium arch stage. For the first time, the musical was also broken into two acts with an interval. It finished its run there on 13 September 1980 in what was its 2,960th performance in London.

In 1977, a Catalan-language version of the musical directed by Ventura Pons and produced by Jordi Morell, with the slogan L'espectacle més desmadrat del segle (The most riotous show of the century), premiered on 4 March 1977 at Teatre Romea in Barcelona.

More information: Medium

 

Musicals are famous for being 

in a constant state of flux.

Tim Curry

STAMFORD BRIDGE, HOME OF CHELSEA IN WEST LONDON

Today The Grandma and her family visit Stamford Bridge for the football match between the local team, Chelsea FC, and Manchester United. 

Stamford Bridge is a football stadium in Fulham, in the Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, in West London.

It is the home of Premier League club Chelsea. With a capacity of 41,312, it is the twelfth-largest football stadium in England.

Opened in 1877, the stadium was used by London Athletic Club until 1905, when new owner Gus Mears founded Chelsea Football Club to occupy the ground; Chelsea have played their home games there ever since. It has undergone major changes over the years, most recently in the 1990s when it was renovated into a modern, all-seater stadium.

Stamford Bridge has hosted Charity Shield games. It has also hosted numerous other sports, such as cricket, rugby union, rugby league, speedway, greyhound racing, baseball and American football. The stadium's highest official attendance is 82,905, for a league match between Chelsea and Arsenal on 12 October 1935.

Stamford Bridge is considered to be a derivative of Samfordesbrigge meaning the bridge at the sandy ford. Eighteenth century maps show a Stanford Creek running along the route of what is now a railway line at the back of the East Stand as a tributary of the Thames. The upper reaches of this tributary have been known as Billingswell Ditch, Pools Creek and Counters Creek. In medieval times the creek was known as Billingwell Dyche, derived from Billing's spring or stream. It formed the boundary between the parishes of Kensington and Fulham. By the 18th century, the creek had become known as Counter's Creek, which is the name it has retained since.

The stream had two local bridges: Stamford Bridge on the Fulham Road (also recorded as Little Chelsea Bridge) and Stanbridge on the King's Road, now known as Stanley Bridge. The existing Stamford Bridge was built of brick in 1860-1862 and since been partly reconstructed.

Stamford Bridge opened in 1877 as a home for the London Athletic Club and was used almost exclusively for that purpose until 1904, when the lease was acquired by brothers Gus and Joseph Mears, who wanted to stage high-profile professional football matches there. However, previous to this, in 1898, Stamford Bridge played host to the World Championship of shinty between Beauly Shinty Club and London Camanachd.

Stamford Bridge was built near the Lillie Bridge Grounds, an older sports ground which had hosted the 1873 FA Cup Final and the first ever amateur boxing matches (among other things). It was initially offered to Fulham Football Club, but they turned it down for financial reasons. After considering the sale of the land to the Great Western Railway Company, the Mears decided to found their own football club, Chelsea, to occupy the ground as a rival to Fulham. Noted football ground architect Archibald Leitch, who had also designed Ibrox, Celtic Park, Craven Cottage and Hampden Park, was hired to construct the stadium. In its early days, Stamford Bridge stadium was served by a small railway station, Chelsea and Fulham railway station, which was later closed after World War II bombing.

In 1945, Stamford Bridge staged one of the most notable matches in its history. Soviet side FC Dynamo Moscow were invited to tour the United Kingdom at the end of the Second World War and Chelsea were the first side they faced. An estimated crowd of over 100,000 crammed into Stamford Bridge to watch a 3-3 draw, with many spectators on the dog track and on top of the stands.

In the early 1970s the club's owners initiated a project to renovate Stamford Bridge. However, the cost of building the East Stand escalated out of control after shortages of materials and a builders' strike and the remainder of the ground remained untouched. The new East Stand was finished, but most of the (unusable) running tracks remained, and the new stand was also displaced by approximately 20 metres, compared to the pitch. The idea was to move the entire stadium towards the north. But due to the financial situation in the mid-1970s the other stands were not rebuilt for another two decades. In the meantime, Chelsea struggled in the league, and attendances fell and debts increased. The club was relegated to the Second Division in 1975 and again in 1979, narrowly avoiding the drop into the Third Division in 1983 before finally returning to the First Division a year later.

With the Taylor Report arising from the Hillsborough disaster being published in January 1990 and ordering all top division clubs to have all-seater stadiums in time for the 1994-95 season, Chelsea's plan for a 34,000-seat stadium at Stamford Bridge was given approval by Hammersmith and Fulham council on 19 July 1990.

KSS Design Group (architects) designed the complete redevelopment of Stamford Bridge Stadium and its hotels, megastore, offices and residential buildings.

More information: Chelsea FC

 Blue is the colour, football is the game.
We're all together, and winning is our aim.

Chelsea Anthem

'THE MOUSETRAP,' AGATHA CHRISTIE'S MURDER MYSTERY

Today, The Morgans & The Grandma has bought some tickets to see The Mousetrap in London's West End, a play written by Agatha Christie that opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London in 1952.

The Mousetrap is a murder mystery play by Agatha Christie.

The Mousetrap opened in London's West End in 1952 and ran continuously until 16 March 2020, when the stage performances had to be discontinued due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The longest-running West End show, it has by far the longest initial run of any play in history, with its 27,500th performance taking place on 18 September 2018.

The play has a twist ending, which the audience are traditionally asked not to reveal after leaving the theatre. The play began life as a short radio play written as a birthday present for Queen Mary, the consort of King George V. It was broadcast on 30 May 1947 under the name Three Blind Mice starring Barry Morse. The story drew from the real-life case of Dennis O'Neill, who died after he and his brother Terence suffered extreme abuse while in the foster care of a Shropshire farmer and his wife in 1945.

The play is based on a short story, itself based on the radio play, but Christie asked that the story not be published as long as it ran as a play in the West End of London. The short story has still not been published within the United Kingdom, but it has appeared in the United States in the 1950 collection Three Blind Mice and Other Stories.

When she wrote the play, Christie gave the rights to her grandson Matthew Prichard as a birthday present. In the United Kingdom, only one production of the play in addition to the West End production can be performed annually, and under the contract terms of the play, no film adaptation can be produced until the West End production has been closed for at least six months.

The play had to be renamed at the insistence of Emile Littler who had produced a play called Three Blind Mice in the West End before the Second World War. The suggestion to call it The Mousetrap came from Christie's son-in-law, Anthony Hicks.

More information: The Mousetrap

In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, The Mousetrap is Hamlet's answer to Claudius's inquiry about the name of the play whose prologue and first scene the court has just observed (III, ii). The play is actually The Murder of Gonzago, but Hamlet answers metaphorically, since the play's the thing in which he intends to catch the conscience of the king. Three Blind Mice or its tune is heard a few times during the play.

The play's longevity has ensured its popularity with tourists from around the world. In 1997, at the initiative of producer Stephen Waley-Cohen, the theatrical education charity Mousetrap Theatre Projects was launched, helping young people experience London's theatre.

The play's storyline is set at the present, which presumably means England as it was around the time when the play came out in 1952, including postwar continuation of World War II rationing.

Tom Stoppard's 1968 play The Real Inspector Hound parodies many elements of The Mousetrap, including the surprise ending.

As a stage play, The Mousetrap had its world premiere at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham on 6 October 1952.

It was originally directed by Peter Cotes, elder brother of John and Roy Boulting, the film directors. Its pre-West End tour then took it to the New Theatre Oxford, the Manchester Opera House, the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, the Grand Theatre Leeds and the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham before it began its run in London on 25 November 1952 at the Ambassadors Theatre.

It ran at this theatre until Saturday, 23 March 1974 when it immediately transferred to the larger St Martin's Theatre, next door, where it reopened on Monday, 25 March thus keeping its initial run status. The London run has now exceeded 26,000 performances. The director of the play for many years has been David Turner.

Christie herself did not expect The Mousetrap to run for such a long time. In her autobiography, she reports a conversation that she had with Peter Saunders: Fourteen months I am going to give it, says Saunders. To which Christie replies, It won't run that long. Eight months, perhaps. Yes, I think eight months. When it broke the record for the longest run of a play in the West End in September 1957, Christie received a mildly grudging telegram from fellow playwright Noël Coward: Much as it pains me, I really must congratulate you...

In 2011, by which time The Mousetrap had been running for almost 59 years, this long-lost document was found by a Cotswold furniture maker who was renovating a bureau purchased by a client from the Christie estate. By the time of Christie's death in 1976 the play made more than £3 million.

More information: The Guardian

The original West End cast included Richard Attenborough as Detective Sergeant Trotter and his wife Sheila Sim as Mollie Ralston.

Since the retirement of Mysie Monte and David Raven, who each made history by remaining in the cast for more than 11 years, in their roles as Mrs Boyle and Major Metcalf, the cast has been changed annually. The change usually occurs around late November around the anniversary of the play's opening, and was the initiative of Sir Peter Saunders, the original producer. There is a tradition of the retiring leading lady and the new leading lady cutting a Mousetrap cake together.

The play has also made theatrical history by having an original cast member survive all the cast changes since its opening night. The late Deryck Guyler can still be heard, via a recording, reading the radio news bulletin in the play to this present day. The set was changed in 1965 and 1999, but one prop survives from the original opening -the clock, which sits on the mantelpiece of the fireplace in the main hall.

In May 2001, during the London production's 49th year, and to mark the 25th anniversary of Christie's death, the cast gave a semi-staged Sunday performance at the Palace Theatre, Westcliff-on-Sea as a guest contribution to the Agatha Christie Theatre Festival 2001, a twelve-week history-making cycle of all of Agatha Christie's plays presented by Roy Marsden's New Palace Theatre Company.

Performances at the St. Martin's Theatre were halted on 16 March 2020 with all other West End shows due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. 

The Mousetrap re-opened on 17 May 2021 after 14 months without performances.

More information: Official London Theatre

Crime is terribly revealing.
Try and vary your methods as you will,
your tastes, your habits, your attitude of mind,
and your soul is revealed by your actions.

Agatha Christie

'PHANTOM OF THE OPERA' IS ALWAYS A MUST IN LONDON

Today, The Morgans & The Grandma want to enjoy a wonderful musical, the Phantom of the Opera, one of the most popular shows in London, which is widely considered one of the world's most beautiful and spectacular musicals. Since 1986, it has played to over 160 million people in 217 cities and 23 languages.

Before this, the family has studied some English grammar with Interrogative Pronouns and Adverbs of Frequency.

 

More information: Adverbs of Frequency

More information: Interrogative pronouns

Enjoy ESL Cyber Listening Lab 

The story of the Phantom of the Opera was originally published in a series of articles in La Galois and then in a book in 1911 entitled, Le Fantôme de l’Opéra written by a French journalist, Gastón Leroux. 

When the story was first published it was not popular and the book went out of print.

Leroux whose speciality was investigative journalism based his story on true-life incidents. In fact, many who have researched this subject believe with just a few exceptions the story has several elements that are true.

The opera house in the story was based on the real Opera Garnier in Paris. The Opera Garnier does have underground tunnels and it also has an underground lake. Leroux used this setting in several dramatic scenes in his story.

There was an incident where a chandelier did fall in the Opera Garnier setting the building on fire and killing a woman.

Leroux used a falling chandelier in his story as a distraction so his Phantom could kidnap Christine.

The romance between the Phantom and Christine in the story is just fantasy but it is believed that Leroux based both characters on real people.

 

More information: The Phantom of the Opera

The Phantom is based upon a man named Erik who was born in a small village in Normandy, near Rouen. He was born with a horribly disfigured face so his parents abandoned him when he was eight. A circus basically took him and for 7 years he was used as an attraction.

It was believed that someone was secretly living in the opera house and many felt it was the ghost of the real Erik. In fact, many claimed that near Box 5 they heard ghostly voices and whispers when the area was unoccupied.

There were other witnesses that stated that they saw this phantom running through various parts of the opera house. Even more eerie these witnesses stated this figure wore a black cape and a mask over its face.

Renata de Waele in 1993 wrote a narrative that compared the fictional to the real stories. She worked in public relations at the Opera Garnier for many years. 

Some of her speculations have been proven others have not. So reality is blurred with fiction which leaves the curious with an intriguing mystery. 

Download The Phantom of The Opera by Gastón Leroux

 

Every legend, moreover, contains 

its residuum of truth, 

and the root function of language 

is to control the universe by describing it. 

James A. Baldwin

EVERTON VS LIVERPOOL ON THE BANKS OF THE MERSEY

Today, The Grandma has been reading about the origins of the two most popular football clubs in Liverpool, Everton FC and Liverpool FC.

Everton Football Club is an English professional association football club based in Liverpool that competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football.

The club was a founder member of the Football League in 1888, and has, as of August 2023, competed in the top division for a record 121 seasons, having missed only four top-flight seasons (1930-31, 1951-52, 1952-53, and 1953-54).  

Everton is the club with the second-longest continuous presence in English top-flight football, and ranks third in the all-time points rankings. The club has won nine league titles, five FA Cups, one European Cup Winners' Cup and nine Charity Shields.

Formed in 1878, Everton won their first League Championship during the 1890-91 season. After winning four more League championships and two FA Cups, the club experienced a post-Second World War lull until a revival in the 1960s. A period of sustained success came in the mid-1980s, when Everton won a further two League championships, one FA Cup, and the 1985 European Cup Winners' Cup. The club's most recent major trophy was the 1995 FA Cup.

The club's supporters are colloquially known as Evertonians or Blues. Everton's main rivals are Liverpool, whose home stadium at Anfield is just under one mile away from Everton's home at Goodison Park; the two clubs contest the Merseyside derby. 

Everton have been based at Goodison Park since 1892, having moved from their original home at Anfield following a disagreement with the landowner over their rent. The club's home colours are royal blue shirts with white shorts and socks.

More information: Everton FC

Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has played its home games at Anfield since its formation.

Domestically, the club has won 19 league titles, eight FA Cups, a record nine League Cups and 16 FA Community Shields. In international competitions, the club has won six European Cups, three UEFA Cups, four UEFA Super Cups -all English records- and one FIFA Club World Cup. The club established itself as a major force in domestic and European football in the 1970s and 1980s, when Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish, led the club to a combined 11 League titles and four European Cups.

Liverpool won two further European Cups in 2005 and 2019 under the management of Rafael Benítez and Jürgen Klopp, respectively; the latter led Liverpool to a 19th league title in 2020, the club's first during the Premier League era.

Liverpool is one of the most valuable and widely supported clubs in the world. The club has long-standing rivalries with Manchester United and Everton. Under management by Shankly, in 1964 the team changed from red shirts and white shorts to an all-red home strip which has been used ever since. The club's anthem is You'll Never Walk Alone.

The club's supporters have been involved in two major tragedies. The Heysel Stadium disaster, where escaping fans were pressed against a collapsing wall at the 1985 European Cup Final in Brussels, resulted in 39 deaths. Most of these were Italians and Juventus fans.

Liverpool were given a six-year ban from European competition, and all other English clubs received a five-year ban. The Hillsborough disaster in 1989, where 97 Liverpool supporters died in a crush against perimeter fencing, led to the elimination of fenced standing terraces in favour of all-seater stadiums in the top two tiers of English football. Prolonged campaigning for justice saw further coroners inquests, commissions and independent panels that ultimately exonerated the fans.

More information: Liverpool FC

Football is a game of mistakes.
Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins.

Johan Cruyff

WE LOVE FOOTBALL CRAZILY, SO WE LIKE WATCHING LFC

Today, The Morgans and The Grandma arrived in Liverpool to spend two days visiting the city and witnessing the UCL match between Liverpool and PSG live at Anfield.

The family had breakfast with The Beatles, old friends of The Grandma with whom they talked about love and musical tastes.

The Grandma told a very interesting story about Alan Lomax and Rosalía whose indisputable works gives incalculable value to oral tradition and the classics.

After the visit, the family has been reviewing English grammar with Adverbs of Manner and State Verbs. They have also created templates for writing essays.

This evening, The Morgans will be special guests in the Anfield stadium box from where they will cheer on Liverpool and remind them that they will never walk alone. The whole family is very excited about this event, well not everyone, with the exception of Andrea Morgan, who doesn't like football.

More information: Adverbs of Manner

More information: State Verbs (I) & (II) 

More information: Alan Lomax Archive

Liverpool is a city in Merseyside, North West England. It is located on the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary, adjacent to the Irish Sea, and is approximately 286 km from London. The name comes from the Old English lifer, meaning thick or muddy water, and pōl, meaning a pool or creek, and is first recorded around 1190 as

All You Need Is Love is a song by the English rock band the Beatles that was released as a non-album single in July 1967.

It was written by John Lennon and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The song was Britain's contribution to Our World, the first live global television link, for which the band were filmed performing it at EMI Studios in London on 25 June.

The programme was broadcast via satellite and seen by an audience of over 400 million in 25 countries. Lennon's lyrics were deliberately simplistic, to allow for the show's international audience, and captured the utopian ideals associated with the Summer of Love. The single topped sales charts in Britain, the United States and many other countries, and became an anthem for the counterculture's embrace of flower power philosophy.

Our World coincided with the height of the Beatles' popularity and influence, following the release of their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Rather than perform the song entirely live, the group played to a pre-recorded backing track. With an orchestral arrangement by George Martin, the song begins with a portion of the French national anthem and ends with musical quotations from works such as Glenn Miller's In the Mood, Greensleeves, Bach's Invention No. 8 in F major, and the Beatles' 1963 hit She Loves You. Adding to the broadcast's festive atmosphere, the studio was adorned with signs and streamers and filled with guests dressed in psychedelic attire, including members of the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Small Faces. Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, described the performance as the band's finest moment.

All You Need Is Love was later included on the US Magical Mystery Tour album and served as the moral for the Beatles' 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine. Originally broadcast in black-and-white, the Our World performance was colourised for inclusion in the Beatles' 1995 Anthology documentary series.

While the song remains synonymous with the 1967 Summer of Love ethos and provided the foundation for Lennon's legacy as a humanitarian, numerous critics found the message naive in retrospect, particularly during the 1980s.

Since 2009, Global Beatles Day, an international celebration of the Beatles' music and social message, takes place on 25 June each year in tribute to their Our World performance.

In the decades following the record's release, Beatles biographers and music journalists criticised the lyrics as naive and simplistic and detected a smugness in the message; the song's musical content was similarly dismissed as unimaginative.

More information: The History Press

Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love

There's nothing you can do that can't be done (love)
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung (love)
Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game (love)

 

The Beatles 

OUR DEAR LEILA, MAY THE FORCE BE ALWAYS WITH YOU!

See if you can spot this one
What will you do when you get lonely
And no one's waiting by your side?
You've been running and hiding much too long
You know it's just your foolish pride

LEILA
You've got me on my knees, Leila
Begging darling please, Leila
Darling, won't you ease my worried mind?

Tried to give you consolation
Your old man, he let you down
Like a fool, I fell in love with you
You turned my whole world upside down

LEILA
You've got me on my knees, Leila
Begging darling please, Leila
Darling, won't you ease my worried mind?

Make the best of the situation
Before I finally go insane
Please don't say we'll never find a way
Or tell me all my love's in vain

LEILA
You've got me on my knees, Leila
Begging darling please, Leila
Darling, won't you ease my worried mind?

THANK YOU

 Of all possessions, a friend is the most precious.

Herodotus