APART from learning The Time Warp as a four-year-old at her childhood dance class, Strictly Come Dancing star turned musical theatre talent Joanne Clifton admits she knew virtually nothing about Richard O'Brien's iconic musical prior to taking on the role of Janet in the current touring production, which visits Belfast's Grand Opera House later this month.
"I hadn't actually seen it – the film or the show," admits the north-of-England-born 35-year-old, who has forged a successful career on stage in shows such as Thoroughly Modern Millie and Flashdance after winning Strictly Come Dancing in 2016 with her partner Ore Orduba.
"When I got the audition, I watched YouTube videos and stuff. In the audition, I had to do the bedroom scene [when Janet is seduced by pan-sexual cross-dressing scientist Frank-N-Furter] on my own on a chair in front of four or five people. It was the most fun thing I've ever ever done!"
However, the 2013 World Professional Ballroom Showdance Champion and Strictly winner [whose brother, Kevin, also dances on the BBC hit] does admit that she was initially baffled by the raunchy cult musical, which has been attracting a diehard following of vocal, dressed-up devotees since debuting in London in 1973.
"We decided to watch the film," recalls Clifton of her Rocky Horror initiation alongside co-star Ben Adams, who also played opposite her in last year's stage version of 80s movie hit Flashdance.
"At first I was like, 'what’s going on?! I don’t even get it!' But then I saw the audience participation [in the stage version] and I absolutely loved it."
Indeed, now that she's a few months into the tour, which also features former A1 man Adams as Janet's strait-laced fiancé Brad and Stephen Webb as kinky mad scientist Frank-N-Furter, Clifton says she's now taking everything in her stockings-clad stride after a couple of bumpy moments early on.
"Rehearsals were amazing, but it wasn't until we got in front of an actual audience with all the things they call out to us and everything – I just didn't expect it to be how it is," she says.
"At first it was a little bit daunting, because the audience know it better than us and they'll shout out if we get something wrong. A fan even told me off for laughing: there's a line just before Touch-a Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me, where Rocky [Callum Evans] says, 'I've been hiding from my creator and his minion' and someone in the audience had managed to smuggle in an inflatable Minion.
"When they shouted 'Banana!' I was just gone! I couldn't get my line out."
She adds: "I've never done anything like this show."
Having wowed crowds in Flashdance and Rocky Horror, it seems Clifton and Adams are currently planning their own musical theatre masterpiece by co-writing a show called Bloody Nora – a jazzy 1930s-set production centred on a female serial killer from Grimsby, just a couple of miles south of where she grew up.
"I am a Grimsby girl, but it's definitely not based on me," laughs Clifton. "It's kind of like an old, classic style musical – only new. We found that we had so much free time during the day on tour that we thought we should be doing something useful.
"Ben had already written [his 80s-themed musical] Eugenius! which had been in London twice at Andrew Lloyd Webber's Theatre [The Other Palace], so he's very good at that kind of thing.
"He was like, 'do you want to write one together?' but at first it was a bit hard for me, because it never entered my head that I could write a musical. And when we started, I had to get used to the fact that we just had to be blunt with each other.
"At first, Ben would be like, 'nah, that's not very good', and I'd be like 'oh no!' But we got to the stage where we could both be like 'no, take that out, that's rubbish!' and just get on with it."
In fact, it seems the pair have managed to rope in some of their Rocky Horror cast mates to help them knock Bloody Nora into shape.
Having made such a successful start to her post-Strictly stage career, it seems that landing the unexpected role of Janet in Rocky Horror has helped Clifton become more open-minded about the kind of roles she wants to pursue – and there is definitely one particular 'dream role' in her sights.
"I did start out thinking 'I want to be Elphaba, I want to be Glinda [both from Wicked], I want to be Roxie Hart [from Chicago]'," she tells me, "but now I've done such a variety of shows – like Rocky Horror, for example, which I'd never even thought about, even though now I absolutely love being Janet – I'm up for anything.
"My actual ultimate goal is to play Rose in Gypsy. It's my favourite musical. I went to see Imelda Staunton in it five times and she moved me to tears every time with her passion – but I'm not old enough to play Rose yet.
"I also want to get into straight acting. I want to be in plays and I'm studying TV acting as well, so we'll see where that leads. It's all exciting times!"
:: The Rocky Horror Show, March 18 to 23, Grand Opera House, Belfast. Tickets and showtimes at Goh.co.uk
