Opening night nerves

I had a nerve-wracking time last night at the opening of the Hole in One Act Play Festival which featured my play 'Bunkered'. I was so nervous I missed a sound cue on my own play - and we never got to hear the seagull poop on the Times crossword.

Afterwards, Kevin Myers, who wrote 'Surviving the Century', one of the other plays,  came up to me in the bar and said, "You know what it needed - a seagull sound effect." He was spot on - unlike the poop. If only I'd pressed the right button!

We had a really good-sized and appreciative audience, which was very rewarding as we were unsure whether people would be interested in unknown, untested plays.

Let's hope we get good crowds in for the rest of the week. A big thankyou to everyone involved - the wonderful writers, talented cast, dedicated directors and technical crew (especially sound!).

Special thanks must go to James Reynolds who co-ordinated the event - a thankless task but one he's done with energy and commitment. Here's to the next four nights!

Things have changed a lot

A song that I co-wrote in 1972 has just re-surfaced on a new CD by an old friend of mine, Drew Millin. The song. 'Things Have Changed A Lot', was one of a bunch of tunes we wrote when sharing a bungalow in sunny Torquay. I was a film student on holiday for the summer and Drew was selling advertising space on the local paper The Herald Express. But secretly, we both wanted to be rock stars - although as our band, The BOI, was a weird fusion of Crosby Stills and Nash and Frank Zappa, this was unlikely. We were either years ahead of our time - or rubbish.

As the band's producer (alias Yorick Zimmerman) I sent demo tapes off to every record label, including the Beatles' Apple and John Peel's Dandelion Records, and each of them in turn rejected us.

Above is the letter sent by legendary producer George Martin politely saying no. We were not, as we thought, the next Beatles.

Now one of the "pleasantly formed" songs, as George Martin described them, is on Drew's CD 'Don't Rush Me'.

Read all about it here - and buy a copy!
http://www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk/news/Balladeer-art-form-taking-time/article-2703444-detail/article.html