In 2003 the Rocky Horror Show celebrated it's 30th Anniversary on stage in the UK. Not only did fans get the chance to see a brand new national tour of the show, (produced by the then Rocky Horror Horror Company Ltd, featuring Jonathan Wilkes as Frank,) they were also treated to another smaller official, independently produced version of Rocky at the Civic Theatre, Chelmsford in the November of that year.

The Civic Theatre in Chelmsford is no stranger to Rocky having housed, it's own very successful versions of the show in November 1987, 1994 and 1999 with Raynor Burton, Martin George and Ceri Dupree as Frank respectively. All versions of the show where produced by Newpalm Productions and Newpalm's back to basics direction, set and costumes where a great contrast to the 1/2 million pound Jonathan Wilkes version that year. The production at the Civic Theatre had a threadbare, cheap B-movie feel to the show, more in keeping with its origins at the Royal Court than the 70's disco themed national tour that year.

The static set was similar to the Theatre Royal, Hanley's touring version of the show in the 1980's and the playing style and direction again invoked memories of that production.

Fan club rep Kevin McEwen approached actor David Rumelle who played the Narrator in the 2003 production at Chelmsford and David has kindly agreed to share some rare publicity photographs from the show with the fans via Timewarp. These photographs where taken by Marion Orchard who was the press representative for Newpalm Productions at the time. The majority of the photographs where taken just before the show opened in November 2003 and where used to promote the show itself, plus there are also a couple of shots of the cast promoting a local charity at the press call. David has also kindly allowed us to use a candid backstage shot of him being fitted for his walk down finale costume.

In all of the years that Newpalm Productions have been involved with Rocky, they have never produced a large glossy brochure for any of their productions, instead preferring to sell a small program with a brief history of the show and the usual cast biogs inside. So if you missed the actual production of Rocky at the time, chances are, you are unlikely to have seen any pictures of the casts in costume. Timewarp would therefore like to thank David Rumelle for allowing us exclusive access to these pictures and letting the fans see these these rare photographs altogether for the first time.

Please note all images remain copyright of Marion Orchard / David Rumelle and are reproduced here on the timewarp.org.uk site with permission.

Click on an image for a larger version

And a big thankyou to Kevin for arranging this brilliant archive of the show for us!