Surreal flights of fantasy - in the second episode, a highly trained squad of Elton John lookalikes defend the genuine article from the Stasi - are lent an extra comic gleam by O’Brien’s plummy, unfazed delivery. The reason for our conversation today is the six-part Baron Munchausen-esque audio comedy The Barren Author, in which he plays the Brigadier, a spinner of deliriously tall tales. ‘Pretending you’re someone else is rather wonderful’ …O’Brien’s brigadier character in The Barren Author. What can you have as a substitute?” A mirthless chuckle. I couldn’t think of anything nicer, quite frankly.” Those days are over. “I used to love sitting on the back porch all day with a bottle of very full-bodied red at my elbow and a couple of jazz cigarettes. “I bounced back.” But he has had to make a few unwelcome adjustments to his lifestyle. That’s when Sabrina called the ambulance.” Finally, I gave up with the milk, went to go back to the bedroom, slid down the wall and started speaking in tongues.
“I just thought: ‘I wonder why I can’t get up.’” Struggling to his feet, he attempted to make a drink, only to discover he couldn’t put the top back on the milk. “I didn’t register that something was desperately wrong,” he says, speaking from the house he shares with his third wife, Sabrina, 10 miles outside of Katikati. He was pottering around at home in New Zealand when he suddenly found himself lying on the floor. A few months ago, however, the rakish Rocky Horror Show creator, Crystal Maze presenter and transgender parent-of-three received a stark reminder of his advancing years.
R ichard O’Brien is 78, but his toothpick body and lightbulb head have always lent him a certain agelessness.
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