Oh yes, such a fuss, such a fuss... but how can it possibly be as good as Titus A, the horror panto directed by Viv Glance that we took to the Edinburgh Fringe in the 1980s?
Packed with grisly songs written by Dave Jago and myself, we rocked the aisles (well, sort of). The audience one night included a nun, whom I was convinced was going to stand up and denounce us halfway through; but she didn't: she roared with laughter. Our orchestra consisted of musicians who later went on to form Transglobal Underground and who were the house band for the Count of Three Theatre Group.
I've still got the songs, all written out in notation form for a peculiar combination of musicians. I remember tons of bombastic energy from the actors.
One of them was a tea auctioneer with a very loud voice; he once asked me if I'd like a hand carrying my amplifier and when I said yes, he picked me up and tucked me under his arm (with the amplifier) and carried me along.
I made a head out of latex to be baked in a pie. The eyes were half ping-pong balls and it became progressively more jellified as the production proceeded.
Actually, one of the cast contacted me recently to say how much he had enjoyed it.
It was actually huge fun and I miss writing songs for theatre groups and musicals; I used to do a lot of it. I think the last one was probably for Theatretrain, and was about artists. It was performed by 500 schoolchildren in Brentford Leisure Centre and the songs were arranged by Shirley Bassey's arranger.
Gee whiz- what a life!
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