Seize the Day

by Mike Read

  Within a year, producer extraordinaire Bill Kenwright picked up the show and decided to stage it at the Thorndike Theatre in Leatherhead, although he wasn’t especially keen on the title we’d used at Hurtwood, The Most Beautiful Man in England. It’s a hell of a thing to live up to if you’re playing the lead, out there each night, gingerly treading the boards dreading some wag shouting, ‘I’ve seen more beautiful men in gurning contests.’ I was on the phone to Bill from the end of a platform at Kings Cross station when we finally agreed on calling the show Young Apollo, thus creating a vague link, in case it should ever come up in some obscure quiz, between Queen Boadicea (or Boudicca as they now call her), allegedly buried under one of the platforms, Harry Potter and Rupert Brooke. Hugh Wooldridge directed again and organised a superb set that drew applause in its own right.

  Alex Hanson played Brooke, and stayed with me at The Aldermoor for some of the run. Over a glass of something with a fancy label one evening, he suddenly looked quizzical. ‘Wasn’t Brooke blond? I’m very dark, won’t that look odd?’

  I smiled. That slow, knowing smile that I fancied would look good on the silver screen. It probably just looked ridiculous, but I smiled it nevertheless. ‘You’re dark at the moment, but it won’t last.’

  Realisation dawned. ‘Oh no,’ I believe were the actual words that came from his mouth. I nodded slowly. Again very filmic, I thought. Within two days he was blond, his head shining like the Eddystone lighthouse on a foggy night, and full of disbelief that he’d been well and truly bleached.

  Now when I was doing amateur dramatics, the prompt stood to the side of the stage and if you forgot your lines, you’d sidle as unobtrusively as possible towards them, hoping they’d spot your dilemma and whisper the words audibly enough for you to pick up. It was a covert operation. Not so with the Alex Hansons of this world. On the dress run, with full audience, when he dried, he screamed ‘LINE!’ like an elephant protecting her young from a pride of lions. I jumped. I’m sure several in the front row were thrown into the second row with the force of it. It was all over in a flash and the musical moved on. No whispering, no edging towards the side, Alex took it full on. ‘Crikey,’ I thought at the time. ‘Bravo,’ I thought afterwards. Another incident wasn’t quite so well received. We’re still with the dress run and a full house, but Clive, our musical director, was desperate not to miss England v. Poland and took it upon himself to listen to the match on headphones, while playing keyboards and directing the music. No one would know, so where’s the harm? There was no harm at all … until Gary Lineker found the net after twenty-four minutes. During a quiet and particularly moving moment in an early scene, Clive’s voice (and we all shout louder with headphones on) rang around the auditorium, ‘England have scored!’ I don’t recall any of the cast or the audience yelling back ‘Oh, jolly good’ or anything similar. Maybe some in the back rows went away thinking it was a particularly avant-garde moment in the show and I was the new theatrical Messiah. Actually there were messianic writers already present in the shape of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, who both turned up to give their support. Andrew even brought a bunch of flowers. Bill Kenwright’s plan to move it to the Mermaid never materialised, even though I was convinced by his tears during one performance. ‘That’s it,’ I thought, ‘he’s visibly moved … the West End (well close enough for me) beckons.’ I later learned that Bill is always emotional at his musicals. The West End actually wouldn’t beckon until the new millennium, and without Young Apollo. While I laid down most of the demo tracks for the musical, the duet ‘Too Young for Love’ was beautifully demoed by Michael Ball and the young actress who had played Myfanwy in the David Essex video, Rachel Roberts.

  Speaking of Myfanwy, we debated which of the Betjeman songs would be a suitable follow-up for the autumn on 1987. I was keen on Captain Sensible’s ‘Parliament Hill Fields’, or Justin Hayward’s ‘Tregardock’, but in the end we decided to go for David Grant’s ‘Conversion’, with the Eton College Choir on the B-side. We used Mickie’s RAK label for this release, but David’s manager thought it was rather a distraction as he was pushing him in other areas so it wasn’t really promoted heavily and consequently failed to chart. In 1989 the two Alvin Stardust tracks, ‘Christmas’ and ‘Executive’, were released on the Honeybee label, but we were thwarted by a total lack of distribution. Undaunted we pressed on, thwarts and all. Despite several TV appearances, a lot of hard work by the lovely Alvin and a jolly seasonal video shot at my house and the church at Holmbury St Mary, and involving a terrific new scheme of colouring in each frame by hand to achieve a truly unique effect, it failed to trouble the scorers. The only bonus was having a fully decorated Christmas tree in my drawing room in September. In our defence, it did make the top ten of several Christmas listings. ‘Myfanwy’ re-emerged on my Silhouette label in 1990 and was also on the Poetry in Motion album, which came out in the same year. I decided to release the album on my own label as everyone felt that it had legs, but no one had had the opportunity to buy it. In 1991, ‘Myfanwy’ escaped for a fifth time on David Essex’s The Christmas EP, along with ‘A Winter’s Tale’, and, for a sixth time, on the His Greatest Hits album, which climbed to number one and spent thirteen weeks in the chart.

  In the end there was no Betjeman musical as such, but I re-wrote it as a vehicle for a charity evening, with interlinking dialogue for a JB-style character. It got its first airing as Poetry in Motion in the spring of 1992 at the Richmond Theatre, in aid of the Royal Marsden Hospital. Jeremy Irons and John Wells undertook the narration, while the impressive list of artists included Donovan, David Grant, Tim Rice, Peter Sarstedt, Carl Wayne, Cantabile and Alvin Stardust. Christopher G. Sandford directed proceedings, with the Wren Orchestra lending their weight to it, Rod Edwards supervising the music and Tony Rivers leading the backing vocal team. It sold out and was well received by the audience and the press.

  I staged Poetry in Motion a second time in 1998, at the Criterion Theatre in the West End for the Children with Leukaemia Trust, run by the tireless Karen Sugarman, now of Shooting Star Chase Hospices. This time, Tim Rice, his daughter Eva, Cliff Richard, Leo Sayer, Tony Hadley, Colin Blunstone, Carl Wayne and Dean Sullivan took part, with the wonderful Bernard Cribbins taking the role of Betjeman. We raised more than £10,000 on the night, so bless all those who give their time again and again for good causes.

  We released another track from the Poetry in Motion album as a single in 1992, Donovan’s ‘Newest Bath Guide’. We hit upon the novel idea of shooting the video in Bath, utilising the weir, the architecture and the Roman baths with Don looking suitably moody. Driving from the hotel very early in the morning, I noticed a rather pungent smell in the car. ‘What’s that, Don, have we just passed an Indian restaurant? It smells like somebody’s day-old takeaway.’

  ‘Very perceptive,’ said the minstrel. ‘It’s the remains of my Indian takeaway from last night. I thought I’d have it for breakfast.’

  I pulled into a garage, deposited the ‘Remains of the Takeaway’ (as another Old Wokingian, Kazuo Ishiguro, almost wrote) in the litter bin and re-started the car. We drove to our destination in silence. Not a good start to the day. But, ever the professional, an Indian-free Don rose to the occasion. Having breakfasted on something far more appropriate, we got a spiffing and historically weighty video in the can. Don sang the song live on Pebble Mill, but maybe the single was too whimsical, folksy and literary to take on Gabrielle, Queen, UB40 and Shaggy for a chart placing.

  In between all this musical activity, radio, TV and social stuff, there were gigs. What fun to get up and play live music. Well, fun for us, if not the audience. I discovered a shot from one such event, in Hampstead, lurking on the front page of the Hampstead & Highgate Express, fondly known as the Ham & High. This isn’t unusual in itself, but it remains the only photograph of me with a full beard, which in tandem with a suntan and long locks made me look, as Alison, my girlfriend at the time, commented, ‘like a terrorist’. The Sun reported that I lo
oked ‘like a cross between Dustin Hoffman in the film Papillon and George Best on a bad night’. A little harsh.

  In 1991, just before I moved from Radio One to Capital, my musical on Oscar Wilde was staged for the first time. It was billed as a world premiere, which although technically true, sounds a trifle pretentious. But who cares? It was a world premiere, so let’s run with it. My friend Martin Miller (of the Miller’s Antiques Guides) and his then wife Judith, today one of the experts on Antiques Roadshow, owned the beautiful Chilston Park in Kent. At night the house was lit entirely by candles: very romantic – or very sinister, depending on your mood. Either way, it offered the ideal setting for a musical play, so together we hatched a plan and it came to fruition. A cast, a couple of weeks, a hundred and something people a night, black tie, champagne and canapés before and dinner afterwards, the cast joining the audience as they were all staying at the house. Oscar would surely have approved.

  His grandson certainly did. A year or two earlier, after writing the first draught, I’d sent it to Merlin Holland, who approved of it to such an extent that he became involved. He felt that it was the most balanced piece he’d seen on the subject. We also became good friends, and I even helped save his son Lucien’s life.

  I was round for dinner and drinks one evening at their house in Wandsworth and after a few hours of bonhomie felt I should be beetling off. ‘Have a tea or something before you go,’ insisted Merlin. I refused, then relented. ‘Well, if I do I should really pop to the loo while you put the kettle on.’ At the top of the stairs I smelled smoke. It was coming through the gap at the bottom of the door to his son Lucien’s bedroom. I yelled to Merlin, who came pounding wild eyed up the stairs. We opened the door and billows of dense fumes poured out. Keeping a clear head, Merlin dashed to the bathroom, wet a flannel, put it over his face and dragged an unwilling Lucien from the room. Within twenty minutes electric blue flashes were rebounding off the walls and two fire engines stood at the gates. It seemed Lucien had nodded off and a bedside lamp had fallen onto the pillow. The smouldering had continued for some while, until the whole room was filled with smoke. A very lucky escape. I was pleased I had agreed to that cup of tea.

  Before every performance, Merlin did a superb preamble about his grandfather, setting the scene and bringing a sense of history to the occasion. He made allusion to the fact that had Oscar lived to find success again, he would have written about the tragic part of his life. ‘This is the tragedy that Oscar lived, but didn’t live to write about it. Mike Read has written it.’ What a lovely testimony. Merlin was clearly so good in his role that one lady, sitting next to him at dinner, assumed he was an actor and asked him how he got the part. ‘You’d better ask my mother,’ came the quick riposte, which went over the lady’s head.

  ‘Why, was she in the acting profession too?’

  ‘No, I am Oscar’s grandson.’

  ‘Oh, go on … you can stop acting now.’

  The talented Don Gallagher played Oscar, and Alvin Stardust surprised everyone (I knew he would) with a powerful performance as the Marquess of Queensberry. After one show, a guy sidled up to me, told me he’d enjoyed it and then declared himself to be a ‘serious’ clairvoyant. As opposed to a jokey one that’s just teasing you, I supposed. Anyway, he first told me in no uncertain terms that I had a very strong spirit guide called Emily. I stared. ‘She’s a very old member of your family.’ There were no Emilys in my family that I knew of, but the sage insisted. ‘Ask your grandmother.’ I did, the following day, and waited for the gales of derisive laughter. No laughter. ‘Oh gosh, that’s a long time ago. That would be my great-aunt Emily. She was a devout spiritualist and used to take me to meetings when I was a little girl.’ Well, I wasn’t expecting that. I now think of my disapproving ancestor looking over my shoulder and silently chiding me when I wander off piste. Is she helping me write this? It’s a thought. Maybe Great-Great-Great-Aunt Emily could knock out a few thousand words of this book each night when I’m in bed. Meanwhile the clairvoyant had more to offer. ‘This musical will one day be known across the world,’ he announced with a smile. ‘It will be talked about globally.’ Did his smile betray the fact that he also knew why it would attract such attention?

  Oscar got some very encouraging reviews, one magazine commenting that after ‘You Always Want the One Who Doesn’t Really Want You’, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Must have been the champagne. It has a tendency to make some folk maudlin. Attendees were also mentioned. ‘Mr Cliff Richard enjoyed the show and stayed for dinner, as did Mr Tim Rice. Mr Rice believed there were at least three hit songs in the show.’ What taste, what perception! The article also gave honourable mention to ‘His Excellency Dasho Lhendhrup Dorje, who had come all the way from the small, exotic Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas.’ That’s one heck of a bus ride.

  One night I got chatting to a guy called Mike Eilers, who liked the show so much he offered to put up some money if it was produced again. Top man. Thanks largely to his generosity the show appeared at the Old Fire Station, Oxford the following year. Cliff also helped out towards the production costs, as well as lending me his main man who looks after him on tour, Roger Bruce. Well grounded in musicals, Roger had worked on Time in the West End among other stage shows. He even took the cast’s shirts home to wash. You couldn’t have asked for more. Well, maybe if the collars and cuffs had been starched…! At Oxford, the one-time-blond Rupert Brooke, Alex Hanson, was now dark enough again to take on the lead role.

  Again it got some great reviews. Baz Bamigboye in the Daily Mail said, ‘Having heard the score, I think Mr Read can safely give up his day job.’ I loved Baz for that and instantly forgave him any previous reporting on my love life. I loved The Stage too, for writing, ‘The whole piece may be described as the thinking man’s musical. Scholarly libretto … the music is mature … he [Read] is clearly no Wilde popularist but a scholar too.’ The theatre publishers Samuel French added, ‘The libretto is extremely literate with some amusing use of language and a general air of sophistication.’

  Oscar’s next outing (insert your own third-form jokes here) was at the King’s Head Theatre in Islington, with Nigel Williams in the title role, and was again well received, by and large. Nigel was a brilliant Oscar, despite The Times’ review: ‘His Wilde with his toothy grin and arresting yet vacuous eyes, looks suspiciously like Tony Blackburn in a cravat.’ Unfair to Nigel, Oscar and Tony, I’d say. I didn’t escape, of course. ‘If you like several tablespoons of sugar on your tragedies this show might make you happy.’ I was happy with ‘sugar’. Thank heavens it wasn’t ‘saccharine’. The Guardian couldn’t resist the inevitable radio link either despite it not being remotely relevant to the piece: ‘Listen up mates! Deep beneath that bouffant hairdo that is DJ Mike Read a creative literary talent is fighting to get out.’ Bouffant? The Daily Express claimed in a full page, ‘Mike Read would rather have guaranteed press than a fair press.’ Is there a choice? Nick Curtis of the Evening Standard was the only one to completely tear it to shreds, dredging the hacks’ dictionary for useful words such as ‘gauche’, ‘bathos’, ‘stereotypes’, ‘trivial’, ‘doggerel’ and a few other choice barbs to help me sleep at night. Was this the same Evening Standard that had recently written, ‘Mike Read is a man of untapped intellect’? Other reviewers who were adjacent later told me that Nick had quite liked the piece, but that any hint of admiration wasn’t likely to appear in print. We’ve since had a laugh about it. Well, I bought him a drink and he laughed all over again. The critics are, after all, only a handful of people trying to make a name for themselves. The real critics are the public and I continue to hear great comments from paying customers who were baffled as whether the reviewers had watched the same show.

  It was the fourth outing that brought disaster. I’d had so much positive feedback from Oscar that it was mooted, by several enthusiastic mooters, that I should re-stage it as a commemorative piece for the 150th anniversary of Wilde’s birth in 2004. It certainl
y proved memorable. In casting around for a theatre, I was told that the Shaw in Euston Road was intending to re-open. It had stood dark for some while and on inspection proved to be more suitable for conferences than performances, but they promised that they’d wave a magic wand. The spend on re-marketing and re-launching was said to be in excess of £250,000, and Oscar was the very first show. I was told that very little could go wrong. In retrospect a hell of a lot went wrong. All right, everything went wrong.

  In 2004 the banks were still encouraging entrepreneurs to borrow wads of cash to fund, well, almost anything. They kept throwing it at me, so I kept taking it, while the whisperers were telling me that this show was so good that it was going to be the making of my script-writing career. But I broke several rules.

  Rule one: never fund your own show. A wise man, let’s call him Tim Rice, once told me that you don’t have to win twice. If a show you’ve written is successful, you don’t need to be the producer as well. He was right of course, but when the hare is running, as they say in greyhound racing, there’s no stopping the race. There were times when I should have called a halt to the whole thing.

  Rule two: never try to wear a multiplicity of hats. I was writer, director, producer and the frontman for the media. This was a bad idea. In fact several bad ideas.

  Rule three: don’t open in London. Let the critics discover it in the wilds.

  Despite this, we had a great cast, terrific musicians and a script that had already worked three times, so all was looking good – until, that is, we came to the theatre itself. The Shaw had no website, nor was it in any telephone listings. Those people who did, against all odds, manage to get the number never had their calls answered and the phone rang off the hook all the time we were rehearsing. There was no re-launch money and we had zero co-operation. Furthermore, the theatre was in such a terrible state backstage that we had to clean it from top to bottom before we could even get in. By now money was leaking through my pocket, I was juggling directing with producing and doing publicity and became general gopher. My team were exemplary, but they had the burden of Sisyphus.