AP:
It’s going to be released on April 13th apparently.
Not A
Friday, I hope?
AP:
I do hope not!
Right,
we’re much more concerned about hearing about this new musical “Alice”
that you’ve written together with Richard.
Richard, in your own background prior to forming a partnership with
Anthony, did you ever work with a band or group?
RS:
No, I played with Anthony for some years but we’ve never done anything
professionally. I was an academic
basically; a psychologist.
In that
area, what did you do?
RS:
I was doing my Doctorate when we started working and in fact the Alice project
stopped that for a few months.
You will
go back to it?
RS:
Oh absolutely, yes.
With
what end in view?
RS:
I originally started it because I wanted some ideas and I had some ideas I
wanted to work out but I’ll see how things turn out with this.
How long
is it, Anthony, since you left Genesis?
AP:
It seems like hundreds of years but it’s actually fourteen years, which is a
very long time.
And now
a stage musical is this something that has long occupied your thoughts?
AP:
It’s not something that was ever set up that I must do. I was asked to have a go at writing some songs around the
book “Masquerade” and Richard and I collaborated on that only to be piped at
the post by Rod Argent on that one. We
then changed our ideas to ones about Alice, which was our management’s idea.
Tony Smith, my manager, is a big Alice fan and Leeds eventually
commissioned us.
Yes,
let’s hear a bit about this musical being staged in Leeds because by all
accounts the Leeds Playhouse is doing great things in theatre. It’s not only breaking even, it’s forging ahead I gather?
AP:
Yes, packed houses every night I think.
With
some support from the Arts Council, which is right and proper but they
commissioned this musical?
RS:
That’s right yes and it developed out of the blue really and through
the musical director John Owen-Edwards who had done some work with us on the
album. He knew we’d written some
songs.
AP:
He was actually our singing teacher on the album and he mentioned to Leeds that
he’d heard we had an idea about a musical.
In fact what we had to be honest was eight songs and quite a good scheme.
John Harrison came down and grilled us and we found that we hadn’t got
enough to go on. There were not
enough songs, that was the problem.
The
nationals have sent reviewers up to Leeds and word has got about that this could
be going elsewhere, who has been responsible for that?
AP:
Oh, Richard entirely.
It
doesn’t bear too much resemblance to Lewis Carroll’s original work, though,
does it?
RS:
There are allusions there for those who wish to see them.
AP:
The major characters are there in fact. If
you sit in the theatre as I did the other night; the erudite do notice the
characters and who they’re supposed to be.
People suddenly realise that and say, ‘Ah, he’s the caterpillar’.
But
he’s a not a caterpillar in this, he’s a sax playing character.
RS:
Yes, he’s a sax-playing Beatnik called Butterfly Williams. Yes, there are faint allusions to the original.
It’s supposed to be an imaginative treatment of the original.
In very
contemporary terms?
RS:
Not just in contemporary terms but over the last three or four decades, back to
about the Forties and just taking various characters from various times and
places.
Maybe we
can clarify that in a few moments but you have kindly provided us with a
demonstration tape of one of the songs and it is very much that with just piano
and vocals. Who sings on it – is
it the girl who plays Alice?
AP:
Sally Ann Triplett, yes.
Will
there be a record of this musical at some point?
AP:
We hope so, but we don’t know yet.
That’s
Sally Ann Triplett proving that she’s a far better singer that we would have
supposed after her involvement with that silly old Eurovision Song Contest.
A song which she sang as ‘If You Came Back’ and ‘Holding You
Again’, which is interesting because it shows how things evolve in the process
of creating a musical. As Richard
Scott who wrote the words tells me, it’s not called that now.
RS:
No, it’s ‘Holding Him Again’, it was just a song to clarify who she was
singing about and at that point it was quite important.
Is there
very much change in a musical from rehearsals to the final performances?
AP:
Yes, there are lots. Lots of things
have to go. The arrangement of
songs can go, whole scenes can go and so on.
The arrangements of songs you have to leave to the very last moment until
the drama is decided and how these arrangements should be approached.
Who was
playing the piano accompaniment on the piece?
AP:
That was the dour Scotsman himself; the diminutive Kevin Fitzsimmons who is
actually a young genius, I shouldn’t say it but he is.
What
kind of band have you got in the theatre?
AP:
Two synths, guitar, bass and drums.
So
it’s a very contemporary sound?
AP:
Yes, very much so.
Getting
back to the story, Richard, as you said the main characters are there for those
who wish to see them but for those who couldn’t care less, what do they see?
RS:
They see a young girl who lives by a code; a very repressed code and I suppose
she is seduced by music, dance and her imagination; dreams, passion and so on.
How does
a story like that get us back two or three decades as you’ve suggested?
RS:
Just through the characters she meets; the Beatnik is from the Fifties, the Mad
Hacker is from the Sixties, and the Cat is a sort of Forties Music Hall dancer.
If
that’s happening in the storyline, Anthony, is the music doing anything
similar?
AP:
Yes, the music is all over the place. I
didn’t actually know what I’d undertaken when I said I’d do this because
the amount of different styles I had to cover, particularly in dance was just
unbelievable. I was used to doing
my own albums and just being able to sit and do what I want.
First of all I had to try and conjure up a very modern, very
technological world and then go right back through all these styles, many of
which I’d never come across before. Things like Be-bop, I hadn’t a clue how to play like that!
So I lent very heavily on John Owen-Edwards and Heather Seymour was also
very demanding in terms of the dance routines; sections which would go through
all sorts of ideas. I think we go right through from reggae to Charlton.
Goodness,
that must have been a chore for you, indeed!
AP:
It was very challenging!
You are
back down in London now, Richard, looking for a London outlet for this show?
RS:
Well, that’s what we are hoping for, yes.
It’s a question of where to look really. The thing is to get people up there to see it; that can be
quite difficult actually.
AP:
The press have all been up which is fantastic.
Physically,
I mean people will be interested, have you actually been knocking on doors?
AP:
Well, it’s not really up to us; it’s up to the administration in Leeds
really. We’re not actually
calling people up and saying, “Come and see it”.
We obviously spread any contacts we’ve got but it’s really up to the
management to do that.
Well, here’s wishing you both every success and to Leeds Playhouse as well.
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