THE list of props for The Rocky Horror Picture Show is seemingly endless. It includes rice, newspapers, water pistols, flashlights and rubber gloves. And that's just for the audience.

Over the 28 years since it was first screened, the film has become famous for the way audiences like to take part in the action.

The rice is thrown during the wedding scene at the start. When the key players Brad and Janet are caught in a storm, Janet covers her head in a newspaper and the audiences do the same.

If you want to join in the rain storm, you'll need the water pistol.

The American premiere of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1975 was a failure but it was revived on April Fool's Day the following year and began to play to packed houses.

Before long, audiences started booing the villain Dr Frank-N-Furter and cheering Brad and Janet. Within a few months, the audience participation began to include costumes, joining in the dance routines and ad libbing new lines.

Will Ludlow be ready for this when the film shows at the Assembly Rooms as the first of 2004's Top Hat Classics on two dates in January?

Jill Howarth, whose Silk Top Hat Gallery sponsors the series, says: "We hope to include a special fan club late night showing, with everyone joining in. That will be just the thing to cheer people up at the start of the year."

Apart from spawning a host of websites, the film launched the young Susan Sarandon on a great career.

The only prop needed for the year's second Top Hat Classic Brief Encounter is a box of tissues.

Nearly 60 years since it was made, it remains one of the great classics, telling of a hopeless love affair between two strangers who meet on a railway platform.

It shows in February and, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, comes with a huge "Don't Miss" sign.