‘A Jump to the Left’: Riff Raff Returns to Embassy Park
The iconic Riff Raff statue has returned to Embassy Park after a four year absence. Wintec journalism student Kai Creighton interviewed the mind behind the statue to find out more.
For over 20 years, a statue of the character Riff Raff from the iconic Rocky Horror Picture Show has stood in Embassy Park on the main street of Hamilton. The statue, modeled on show creator Richard O’Brien (and first Riff Raff actor), was placed on the site of the former Embassy Theatre where a young O’Brien used to catch late-night sci-fi movies.
After a short-term relocation to accommodate the construction of the new Waikato Regional Theatre, it’s now been relaunched in its permanent location in a glitzy opening event.
“If we were going to try to convince the world we were not a ‘cow town’, the alternatives were to blow up the cow or put a man with fishnets further down the street.”
MARK SERVIAN
The mind behind the statue is Mark Servian, former president of the McGillicuddy Serious Party and current Communications and Marketing Manager at Momentum Waikato.
Servian says the motivation behind the Riff Raff statue came from wanting to move towards a more cosmopolitan city: “At the other end of the street we have a bronze cow, and if we were going to try to convince the world we were not a ‘cow town’, the alternatives were to blow up the cow or put a man with fishnets further down the street.”
Servian feels that the culture of Hamilton is “enormously interesting,” and finds the common attitude that Hamilton has no culture to be “absurd.” The statue was his way of putting Hamilton on the map as a hotbed of creativity.
He first got the idea after watching an episode of the TV show Coming Home and learning Richard O’Brien used to live just two doors down from Servian’s own home. He reached out to Weta Workshop by email, and they agreed to make the statue. After that, things started falling into place, and the statue was funded primarily by the Perry Foundation.
Now that construction on the theatre is complete, Servian says that future plans for Embassy Park involve a new Rocky Horror-themed mural and re-installing the chandelier that used to occupy the space. Other ideas for the space are a new interactive display mimicking Frank’s lab from the movie, and a bench in the shape of a giant pair of lips for people to recline and take pictures on.
Servian says the aspiration for the new theatre is to give creatives the opportunity to stay in Hamilton: “People grow up and start doing weird, crazy stuff and then if they’re committed to being creative, they tend to leave because they can’t see a way forward here. The theatre in particular is saying, well, there’s a pedestal you can get to in this town.”
The Riff Raff statue stands as a monument to the legacy of self-expression in Kirikiriroa, the same city which fostered the seeds of what would become one of the most famous cult classics of all time.
Kai Creighton is a Diploma in Journalism student. This is their first story for the Waikato Independent.
