My first project moonlighting from Superstar followed on from my having helped out as musical director of Snapshots at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East. Its director Jonathan Chadwick entrusted me with writing the songs for All Our Loving. It helped that, as with Snapshots, the writer was Rony Robinson, by now a good friend as well as a warm and trustworthy collaborator, who I’m sure put in a good word about my songwriting abilities. At this stage of my life, I was keen to write musicals, and here I was with a golden opportunity to showcase what I could do, albeit that this was to be a play in which the songs could come in at quite an oblique angle. Brecht rather than Rodgers & Hammerstein. At least, that was the idea.

As in Snapshots,  Paul McCleary and Deborah Findlay were in the cast, as well as Roger Allam, early in his career but already a terrific actor. I wrote my best stuff for Deborah: two good songs, one of which I was to reclaim decades later when I began to perform in cabaret.

The reviews for the production weren’t particularly encouraging, but that didn’t diminish my joy of having my work performed on the stage of such a well-known theatre, by such a superb company of actor-singers.