Craig McLachlan

You have to be pumped.

You do.

In a show like Rocky, it's super energised anyway.

People are expecting a party.

One of the things that helped was the crowd was always rowdy and up for it, especially Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights, you know.

You feel the crowd backstage before you even go out and do the first number.

And you're right.

You're cracking gags at each other.

You're pumping each other up.

There was a thing going on with our cast.

When we'd go to get our mics checked each night,

the sound department would put a subject, they'd write a topic on a bit of paper and we'd have to come up with the naughtiest, most politically incorrect poems.

You're in next to nothing, you're crying with laughter and then you're on.

So you're right, there was a sense of every performance was like an important footy match or whatever.

And the other thing that gets you through is just the energy of this character

funny, naughty group of people and that audience sitting out there waiting.

Listen, just for the record, on Rocky Horror, I never behaved in a fashion that was inconsistent or not in keeping with what was going on around me.

Do you know what I mean?

Most of that cast had already done a tour together.

I was the new guy coming in and they would make me laugh and they were naughty and all the rest of it.