The Rocky Horror Picture Show Chronicle" John Wasserman, who had liked the stage play in London, found the film "lacking both charm and dramatic impact". "Newsweek" called the film "tasteless, plotless and pointless" in 1978. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 80% based on 41 reviews, with the critical consensus reading ""Rocky Horror Picture Show" brings its quirky characters in tight, but it's the narrative thrust that really drives audiences insane and keeps 'em doing the time warp again". A number of contemporary critics find it compelling and enjoyable because of its offbeat and bizarre qualities; the BBC summarised: "for
The Rocky Horror Show a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals". As an out-of-work actor in London 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". A major theme running throughout the musical is transvestitism, which according to O'Brien was not originally meant