Did you know I wrote a musical once, a long time ago?
Most of a musical, at least. Let’s say roughly 98%. Actually, bit less than that as I didn’t write the music. I wrote all the lyrics though. So, let’s say 70%.
The year was 1992 (or 1993) and I was at college studying for a BTEC in Performing Arts. Now, those of you who know that I got good-to-decent grades at GCSE will be wondering why I was studying for a BTEC. Fair question. The gentleman who was starting up the qualification (if I can use that term loosely) at New College, Swindon had visited my school and made it sound like a very exciting thing to do. Within a few months it became obvious that this particular BTEC was the academic equivalent of Betamax, and he buggered off after getting a job at the Tower of London.
I can’t remember what the job was. Something arts related, I’m pretty sure he didn’t run away to London to become a Beefeater or anything like that.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed doing the BTEC, mostly. Of all the useless things in my life I’ve done it’s probably one of my favourites. We were a rag-tag bunch. I think there were roughly 25 students on the course at the start, but those numbers thinned to about 10 by the last few terms.
And towards the end of those last few months an opportunity arose. We were offered funding from a Wiltshire water wildlife trust to put together an educational musical to tour schools on the topic of water preservation.
I mean… Who wouldn’t jump at that?
It was a very little money offered, so we’d have to do it on the cheap. And a very good way to do a play on the cheap is to write it yourself.
At least that was the plan. We agreed the basic idea quickly enough. The Warren Beatty “Dick Tracey” movie had famously flopped a few years previously, so we decided to do a pastiche of that.
Anyone else remember that Dick Tracy film? Did Warren Beatty really make that movie just to shag Madonna? There are easier ways, surely? Especially if you’re Warren Beatty.
Back to our musical, called “Down the Plughole”. This was the plot: an American PI, Harry Lake (Lake, see what we did there?), is brought over from Chicago to Wiltshire by the Mayor of Swindon to investigate a gangster-led water wasting racket. Lake corners the ecologically-unsound rascals, faces off with their boss, Mr Big, and defeats him, saving Wiltshire’s waterways as a result.
Making it a musical was a no-brainer as we had a talented, if dissolute, trio of musicians in the group who could throw together a catchy tune in a heartbeat. It would be broad, garish fun.
Actually, I didn’t come up with the original premise either, so I probably only wrote 60% of it. Damn it!
The idea was that we, the cast, would write the script, scene by scene, in small groups, sharing the load and knitting the pieces together like patchwork. In reality by the time we were on the cusp of rehearsals I’d written six scenes in the time the rest of the cast had written one.
And, by that point, I’d already written about a third of it, so it made sense for me to write the rest.
Okay.
And I was also in the show, playing one of Mr Big’s heavies, Clarence.
Um…
Oh and the band were struggling to come up lyrics. Maybe I could write those as well?
Fuck.
[To be continued.]
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