ALADDIN

Hackney Empire are putting on Susie McKenna's Aladdin, with music by Steve Edis. The glorious Clive Rowe is playing Widow Twanky! He was nominated for an Olivier Award for his role in last years Mother Goose.

The show opens on 28th November and runs until 9th January. I can't wait!

But I must get on with another song.

Music and Lyrics

Now that Steve's work on Inherit the Wind is over we have managed to get some time to work on songs for the new show again, before work begins on the Hackney Christmas panto. Last week the National Theatre lent us a rehearsal room, with a piano, to work in so we could meet up in town between other engagements. It was so quiet and cut off in the bowels of the theatre, a perfect place to work, so we got a lot done. Now that there is more music I am beginning to hear the show as well as see it in my mind, which is a very exciting moment. Because the new musical is set in the 1930's we have decided to have a 1930's feel to the songs... both in music and lyrics. I have spent a lot of time reading lyrics of the time, but because it is such a golden era of song writing many of the songs have slipped over into other era's - songs like "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "I've got you Under My Skin". So it has not been as difficult as I had thought to capture the feel. The difficult part was the transition from the style of Possessed, which felt like moving on to a new relationship.

Inherit the Wind

I went to see a preview of Inherit the Wind on Sunday. The Old Vic has now decided to follow Broadway's lead, having Sunday afternoon shows and leaving the theatre dark on Mondays. The theatre was completely packed. Arriving for a 5pm performance which lasted over two hours still meant I was home for supper on Sunday night. A brilliant idea Kevin!

This is a fascinating show by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee about the 1925 Tennessee "Monkey Trial" which sets Freedom of Thought and the writings of Darwin against bigotry and creationist ideas. It was first performed in 1955 but is now directed by Trevor Nunn to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth.

Steve Edis is the musical supervisor for the show. The musical element is so incredibly important for the audience to understand the background of this idealistically religious town in Tennessee. Their wonderful harmonies and soaring songs help us to see how powerful their religion is to their way of life. The songs were chosen with great care and sung beautifully.

The two leads in the play are Kevin Spacey as the lawyer Henry Drummond and David Troughton as Matthew Harrison Brady the MP who acts for the prosecution - two magnificent performances which must be seen.

Paris Arrowsmith, who read one of the lead parts in our new musical a few months ago, is in the show. Paris graduated from RADA in 2008 bursting with talent and inspiration. He plays three small but beautifully detailed characters Phil, the Reuters Man and the organ grinder. Each character has a different accent and carefully constructed body movement. As the organ grinder he has to cope with a live monkey on stage. The monkey is written into the script, an essential ingredient in a play which deals with Darwin's theories on the origin of the species, but as always with animals on stage it cannot be guaranteed what it will do! I hope we are going to see more of Paris in the future.

UK Songwriting Competition Semi-Finalists

Steve and I are Semi-Finalists in the UK Songwriting Competition for three of the solo songs from POSSESSED - Hold Still, Raft of Delight and Hungry Sea. All three of these songs are solos sung by Jane in the musical. This is a worldwide competition and had 6,000 entries. Hold Still, the last song in the show, had the highest score and almost reached the finals. This is a competition for mainly Pop and Indie songs. It was a bit of a shot in the dark but to have come anywhere in a competition like this, where winners get signed up by Simon Cowell, seems rather amazing!

Desperate Romantics Episode 4 Tonight

Episode 4 of Desperate Romantics is on tonight at 9pm on BBC 2. The picture above is of Holman Hunt (Maniac), just returned from the Holy Land to discover that Annie Miller has been sharing her Holy Land with someone else.

Desperate Romantics Episodes 2 & 3

I have now had a chance to watch the two episodes of Desperate Romantics that I missed while living out a Greek Idyll on the beautiful Island of Patmos. The reviews have been mixed, and some quite vicious, but the viewing figures for the series have been well over the 2 million mark, and mainly women, which is what I had thought it would be. The hits on our Possessed website have dramatically increased and July had the most traffic since we created the site. I have a feeling that this is something to do with the TV series!

However critical one could be about the series, it is exciting and does at least bring the PRB into the public awareness. One character I am really enjoying is that of Lizzie. While writing Possessed I had to restrain the character of Lizzie from taking over the show. The musical focuses on Jane Morris but Lizzie Siddal is one of the most extraordinary characters in the story and it is hard to turn the spotlight away from her. To some extent she used the brotherhood even more than they used her in the end, getting an artistic education from them and becoming an artist in her own right with patronage from Ruskin. Her poetry was rich with imagery... a Sylvia Plath of the 19th Century, with Rossetti her own Ted Hughes.

Greek Island Meeting

Steve and I met up on the Greek Island of Aegina to talk about the new show and had a big family lunch, before setting off to our separate islands.