I have been creating musicals for twelve years and it has become the main focus of my efforts. It has been thrilling for me to embody so many of my interests into one genre. I love composing songs, writing lyrics, thinking up stories, imagining sets and costumes and even my photography has come in useful.

My over-arching ideal is to create a show which is completely original (I don’t seem to be interested in adaptions). The origin often springs from a particular cause or issue that pre-occupies me such as the environment, or the inequalities in our society. So the first impetus comes from a subject matter rather than the characters. They people the story which gives them a ready-made context..

I imbue the tale with as much vitalitinner journey to re-discover its ancient y and impact as I can with colourful characters and lots of “suddenlies”. I have a penchant for satire, irony and you often find dark humour and the bitter-sweet lurking in my tales. Once the story is in my head I then have a simple technique. Every five minutes or so I drop in a song which hopefully has enough melody and skilful lyrics to stand alone beyond its existence in the musical.

My first forays into the biz was to re-imagine the great British tradition of Variety/Vaudeville. I grew up loving the likes of Max Wall and Wilson, Keppel and Betty. “A DATE WITH DESTINY” was performed at The Oval House Theatre and the cast included dancers, roller-skaters, singers, aerialists, comedians, jugglers, apache acts (dancing with a touch of S & M!). Using all the traditions of that great form of popular entertainment I created an over-arching story and each different act was entwined with all the others.

Since then I have created four more original shows. These are all more conventional in that they conform to the more normal musical format. “SHELLSHOCK” tells the story o a soldier returning from a war suffering from PTSD and the effect it has on his wife and daughter. This was performed at The Waterloo East Theatre.

Recently I have developed a good relationship with The Cockpit in Marylebone (London). With my talented director/colleague MARCUS FERNANDO we have mounted three one-hour showcases. “SHIP IN IN A BOTTLE” focuses on a wild, impetuous girl called Miranda who wants to put the world to rights and has started her own soup-run to a homeless bunch of misfits living under railway arches. “TAHITI” is an exotic tale set in the South Seas and involves an island struggling with the effects of sea-level rising and a desperate attempt to rediscover its ancient roots. This springs directly from my acute interest in anthropology and the cultures of traditional, tribal societies with their fascinating myths and rituals.

Most recently Marcus and I worked on “TROLLS OnLINE” a wild story of how two young people from totally different backgrounds find each other in a hostile world and manage to cope with all the snares and pitfalls of modern life. They struggle with corrupt bankers, the excesses social media, internet scammers, devious Influencers and an uncaring government. He is a local, working class lad who happens to be a wizard at IT while she is an asylum-seeker from a war-torn country. (Does that sound familiar and echo some contemporary issues? I leave it to you).

Here are trailer videos of my musicals in reverse order -