Can't Take It With You (BBC2)

THE scale of litigation over the late rock musician Jimi Hendrix's estate was illustrated by learning that a staggering 40m dollars has been spent in legal fees alone, fighting over his legacy.

Here was a story showing what happens when family members fall into the greed pit. It's doubtful if Hendrix is laughing in his grave over the split between his brother and step-sister. He's certainly not laughing in the grave in which he was originally buried. The company that owns the rights to his estate had his body moved to a new mausoleum without telling his younger brother Leon. "I came to pray over Jimi's grave and it was empty," he recalls.

This is the same company whose Hendrix merchandising range includes golf balls, a rocking chair bearing his face, and bottles of red wine. This latter may seem inappropriate as Hendrix died from a mixture of sleeping pills and red wine in 1966.

Hendrix had a relatively brief career, lasting just four years and three studio albums. The musician who grew up in the poor suburbs of Seattle had only £20,000 in the bank. His is the most litigated rock'n'roll estate other than The Beatles.

Emotions have been running high in the family with legal case following legal case. Janie, daughter of the woman Hendrix's father Al married after Jimi's death, is president and CEO of a company said to be worth 80m dollars. Leon's sole inheritance was a souvenir gold record, when he claims Al had promised him 25 per cent of the estate.

Al didn't help matters by declaring in his 1999 autobiography that he wasn't Leon's father, despite naming him 12 years earlier as his one living natural son. Leon claimed his sister was behind the book and sued for defamation. He took a DNA test, the results of which are still under wraps.

Both Leon and Janie have rich backers. Janie has the help of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, a Hendrix fan and the fourth richest man in the world. Leon is being backed by Seattle property financier Craig Dieffenbach, who's put three million dollars into attempting to have Al's will overturned on the grounds that Janie, not her father, was the architect.

The case has taken a new twist with a woman filing suit that she's the daughter of Jimi Hendrix. You could reach only one conclusion: there's nothing like money to bring a family together - in court.

The Rocky Horror Show, Darlington Civic Theatre

THE show where ten per cent of the audience cross-dresses to kill celebrates 30 years of raunchy rock opera in seat-shaking style. Despite a half-hour delay for adjusting the technical wizardry, the fans hitched up their fishnets in fine style to welcome Kevin Kennedy, fresh from his Coronation Street exit as Curly Watts, as the latest narrator. Kennedy's job of revealing all about teenage innocents Brad (Jon Boydon) and Janet (Katie Rowley-Jones) falling under the evil influence of sex-mad scientist Frank N Furter (Jonathan Wilkes) was helped by his popular soap role. Even so, the traditional insults flew from the on-lookers and Kennedy's finest hour was the riposte: "Hasn't your mother told you 'Don't drink on an empty head'." And the actor doesn't bat a false eyelash about joining the pelvic-thrusting stockings and suspenders finale. The simulated silhouetted sex scenes are now so explicit that you'd worry about taking anyone under 14 and you'd definitely leave granny at home. Big-built Wilkes, who has a voice to match, is a joy, while Graham Tudor - who is fondly remembered at Darlington as an angelic Joseph - hasn't got a inch of flab on show around some very skimpy trunks as Rocky. There's really no reason why the time-warp can't last another ten years.

Viv Hardwick

* Runs until Saturday. Box Office: (01325) 486555

TRUE BRIT

Published: ??/??/2003