Another week flown by. I suppose it may have gone so fast as I have been more or less glued to this machine all week putting MISTER PICKWICK onto the computer. It is a musical version I wrote some years ago – some years? – many years (no composer) as I was beaten to the punch by Harry Secombe of course. I seem recently to be rewriting, updating, or putting on disc a whole heap of early work that has never seen the light of day. I particularly like MISTER PICKWICK as I think, even though I say it myself, that my lyrics are pretty darned good. Actually, if I weren’t so modest tee hee, I would have to say they are quite brilliant. In fact from half a dozen attempted musicals I would like to see all my lyrics published in one volume: it would be a book of poetry after all. Why bother with another version of “The Pickwick Papers” if the Secombe show is still doing the rounds? Well, there have been any number of “Peter Pans” and “A Christmas Carol” so why not another “Pickwick Papers”?
Still on the subject of books, have a mass of reading matter for the summer. I haven’t finished the Henry Irving/Ellen Terry book yet, my current bedside book, and have just received, a biography of Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie) by Douglas Murray that I have already dipped my snout into. There is of course much more to Bosie than was ever shown in the Oscar Wilde films in which he has always been portrayed as nothing more than a conceited, hare-brained, selfish, temperamental, thoroughly spoilt, belligerent puppy. I suppose as the films are all about Oscar the screenwriters could hardly go into a study in depth of Bosie’s character which in a way is a great shame and rather a disservice to the man. I have read somewhere of his being considered a second rate poet but in fact, looking at some of his work in this book, he was a damn sight better poet than some of the pseuds who are lauded to the skies. The next is “Burlesque and Parody in English” by George Kitchin, published in 1931 and which looks fascinating, having glanced through it. It goes from Medieval Burlesque to the modern day – albeit by modern we’re talking of 80 years ago. Then there is “The Baron Of Piccadilly” the travels and entertainment of Albert Smith 1816-188O, someone I had never previously heard of but someone who seems to have been a truly remarkable character. Still to come the biography of the Irving brothers, Harry and Laurence. We really must stop buying books. It’s too absurd considering we don’t really have the means for such indulgence and there are already about 6000 volumes here, the shelves in the library, my bedroom, my study, Chris’s workshop and the guest bedroom are packed with absolutely no room for more. But easier said than done when fascinating titles and subjects are brought to one’s notice, and can one ever get enough of books? Maybe I will give them up for Lent!