OLYMPIC gold medalist Robin Cousins is swapping his skates for stilletos to strut his stuff in the cult musical The Rocky Horror Show. Richard (The Crystal Maze) O'Brien's rock and roll musical is at the Palace Theatre Manchester next week, direct from its sell-out West End summer season.

It's the show in which not only the performers, but the audience don stockings and suspenders and basques. Songs have titles like My Sweet Transvestite and Wild and Untamed and the audience is more likely to hurl insults than flowers.

Robin, in silver high heels and basque, is transformed into the alien transvestite Frank N Furter to re-create the songs including the hit number The Time Warp.

The production comes with the warning: "This show has rude parts". But when I spoke to Robin in Manchester he said he did not find the show offensive.

And he said he tried to keep the show raunchy without offending people.

He opened with the show in London and loves it. "I think the way I play Frank is more like the film version, than some of the other interpretations", he said.

Some of his skating fans have seen the show and Robin said: "Once they have got over the shock of seeing me made up and dressed up, they have enjoyed it."

After Robin won the Olympic gold medal in Lake Placid in 1980 he had a successful career as a professional skater and toured the world with his own Ice Skating Repertory Company.

"When I decided to try something else, I thought very carefully about it," he said.

"I knew that whatever I would do, I would want to do it properly and for the right reasons."

He had sung in school and church choirs as a child and attended dance classes. Eventually he decided to play the role of Munkastrap in the hit musical Cats on tour.

He has recorded three albums for Pickwick Records, including The Rocky Horror show and feels comfortable performing in musicals.

His childhood heroes were not sportsmen but singing and dancing stars like Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor.

"I loved musicals then and I do now," he said.

He is still involved in the skating world as a choreographer.

Playing Narrator in the show is the affable Barry Howard. He and Frank are the only characters who can talk back to the audience.

"You have to make sure the audience doesn't take over, Barry said. "But I'm in a position to say 'Shut your face, mine's earning money!'"

Barry's best remembered for his part as the supercilious Barry Stuart-Hargreaves, the ballroom dancer in the BBC TV series Hi-De-Hi.

He toured as The Narrator in "Rocky" for 10 months and describes it as "A panto for grown-ups". This is the fourth "Rocky" show he has been in.

"Everyone comes with the idea of enjoying themselves and they always do," he said.

Acknowledged as one of the best dressed pantomime dames in the business, Barry revealed he designed his own hilarious costumes.

He haunts the markets for unusual materials - he thinks the Northern markets are best - and is currently cutting up green display material to make a maypole dress!

"It's hardly haute couture, but my designs are fine for panto," he said. "John Inman taught me how to do it."

This year he is playing Nanny in the pantomime Sleeping Beauty in Poole.

He prefers that role to the part of the wicked Queen. "You can show your drawers as Nanny," he explained. "It wouldn't seem quite right if you were supposed to be regal."

Unlike many comedy actors, he has no yearnings to play serious roles. And he candidly admits he often goes to the theatres to see productions in which there might be a part for him.

Last year Barry was a huge hit as Jacob Marley in Scrooge at the Palace Theatre.

The Rocky Horror Show will play at the Palace from October 10 to 14.

Pop star Tony Dowding of Bad Boys Inc plays Rocky.

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