Actor sets down roots after 15-year time warp on the road
After 15 years on the road, Kiwi actor Kristian Lavercombe is finally unpacking his bags.
Lavercombe, who has played Riff Raff in Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show over 2600 times, decided to step back from the musical 18 months ago after a three-year tour that spanned the globe.
Having bought a house in Stepneyville, Nelson, 10 years ago that he’s only spent “two minutes” in, he decided to come home, take a year off and renovate.
Lavercombe described life on tour as “pretty hard going physically” and said he needed a break.
Much of the touring was in the UK and Ireland, where they would perform eight shows a week. Their day off would be Sunday, when cast and crew would travel to the next venue.
Some of the theatres would seat up to 3000 people, and tickets to the perennially popular show would sell out years in advance, he said.
It was a full on way of life, but one he enjoyed and became accustomed to. Carrying his worldly possessions from place to place, he culled his belongings to the bare minimum, while still covering the four seasons.
Now back in his hometown, Lavercombe has been working on his house, and setting himself up with the help of his local ReStore and Facebook marketplace. Buying and accumulating things has been “weird”, he said.
“It does give me a little bit of anxiety, but I think as long as I realise I don’t have to carry them with me, I’ll be fine,” he laughed.
Lavercombe attended Nayland College, at a time when Chris Lukies and Bruce Martin “went to town” on school shows, an era when many of the school’s youth went on to train as actors.
It was here, too, in Nelson, that he first performed in Rocky Horror for a show that Pete Rainey produced for the Nelson Arts Festival.
After leaving school at 17 and studying at the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Art in Christchurch, Lavercombe was in Auckland when he auditioned for the show that would change his life.
“I only heard about it on the day, and I wasn’t going to go along, because I had an audition for something else. But I thought if that other audition goes well, I won’t go,” he recalled.
The other audition didn’t go as well as he would have liked, and he decided to turn up, landing the role in what he described as a “sliding doors moment”.
He has now performed in Rocky Horror more than anyone in the show’s 52-year history.
After 2600 performances, did he get bored playing the same character? Lavercombe said he didn’t.
“I was as nervous before my last performance as I was before my first performance,” he said.
“It never really stops, and it’s because I really cared about doing a good job.”
While every day was “different and full on”, there were sacrifices of things that others with more conventional lives take for granted – such as being present for family gatherings, birthdays and weddings.
“You’re just never around for those important things in life, and after a while you go, ‘Oh, actually, those things are really important’. Most people’s main memories from life are those big events, so I really appreciate being available for those.”
His parents are now just up the road from his home overlooking Tasman Bay. Having travelled extensively, Lavercombe said Nelson’s views “stack up globally”.
Ideally, he’d like to create a life where he is based in Nelson, but can “pop off” to other places to work. Since being back on our shores, he has spent time in Christchurch’s Court Theatre doing Strictly Ballroom and in Napier acting in a production of Jersey Boys.
When Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show tours New Zealand next year, he’ll again be taking to the stage, but this time as narrator.
Lavercombe describes the show as a “pop culture icon”, that would have been shocking 52 years ago, but somehow has remained ageless and relevant.
Rocky Horror inspired cosplay before there was even a word for it, he said, and dressing up for the show was fun for those who did so, and made for great people watching for those who didn’t.
“It was just at the forefront of everything, having a transvestite lead character that everybody sort of adores and falls in love with,” he said.
For legions of fans it’s a coming of age film that stays with them.
“In many ways, Rocky Horror gives the message of ‘be whoever you want to be, and don’t care what anybody else thinks, and if you’re a bit different, then it’s okay to be different’.”
Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show comes to Auckland’s Civic Theatre from February 26 to March 8, Christchurch’s Isaac Theatre Royal from March 11 to 15, and Wellington’s St. James Theatre from March 18 to 29.
By Catherine Hubbard, Nelson Mail
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