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Bristol Old Vic

directed by Chris Denys

Looking back at Christmas 1981, I’m astonished by my luck and the energy that sustained it. I had three shows running: one in York, one in Derby, and this one in Bristol. That’s somewhere between eighteen and twenty songs — I can’t remember, exactly, but each production would have required upwards of six. Thus began three decades of scurrying round the country by car, generally overnight so that I could be wherever it was I needed to be for a 10 a.m. rehearsal. I did nod off at the wheel more than once. The only reason I wasn’t involved in an appalling crash was that there was comparatively little traffic on the motorways at that time of night.

Out of these three seasonal shows, the Bristol Old Vic Cinderella was the one with which I was least involved. My mentor and friend Neil Rhoden was the musical director, so once I delivered the songs, which had all been carefully planned in advance with the director Chris Denys, I was able to leave it all in Neil’s hands. I recall eventually turning up at a dress rehearsal, only to discover a fair amount of tension between some of the cast members. Floating above the fray was the redoutable Pip Hinton, who was playing the Fairy Godmother. Pip had had a long career in musicals, variety, revue and TV — she was very familiar to me from a childhood favourite, the BBC show Crackerjack, which she graced from 1961 to 1964. She had great rapport with audiences. I wrote her a comedy number that I think she liked, and a song to see her through the transformation scene, which I seem to recall her being less keen on. In retrospect, her taste was spot-on: the comedy number was good and the transformation song was…less good!