I write a novel in which the main character is a boy named Angelo so I give the book the title ‘Angel’ and guess what happens. Yup, you’ve guessed it a sort of sci-fi number’s just been published with the same title. There seems to be a dearth of good titles. I guess it had to happen and it isn’t the first time. There are four or five books titled ‘Dead On Time’ and at least two ‘Just in Case.’ I guess there is more than likely a ‘Dead On Target’ as well. There is no copyright in titles and so far as I know I still have two or three books with original titles, possibly four with the one I’m halfway through. Many years ago I wrote a screenplay called ‘Speed’ as it was to do with motor racing and drugs. It wasn’t made but shortly after a film of that name did appear. I am trying at the moment to rewrite it as a book, not very successfully as yet and have moved on to Thornton King #5. #4 hasn’t been published yet although I finished it well over a year ago, neither has my horror story ‘The Museum Mysteries’ so there is a backlog building up.
Big headline in The Sunday Telegraph – AT WAR – THE MEN WHO MADE LES MISERABLES A HIT.
Evidently the theatrical knights Sir Trevor Nunn and Sir Cameron Macintosh have had a bit of a falling out and are not speaking to each other? Why? Allegedly Sir Trev is in a tizzy fit because he has not been invited to take part in the celebrations for the twenty-fifth year anniversary of Les Miz , the longest running musical in theatrical history! It has played in 42 countries and been seen by more than 57 million people. I’m not one of them. I saw an extract of the show on television back in who knows when which put me right off. I remember some years ago the same thing happened with ‘On The Twentieth Century’ but when I was eventually dragged to see that I absolutely loved it. Maybe the same would have happened with Les Miz, who knows? When I was teaching in Denmark back in ‘89 one of my students was singing a lovely song,’ Empty Tables, Empty Chairs,’ and recently Susan Boyle’s rendering of ‘I had a dream’ has renewed interest in it so it should run a few more year yet.
Anyway back to multi millionaire Sir Trev, ‘There is no point in beating about the bush. We are profoundly unhappy and we feel profoundly betrayed, and we don’t understand,’ he said. (Note the royal we)
Sir Cameron who has also, by the way, had a long running tiff with that other giant of the theatre, Android Lord Webster, but with whom he now says he is once more on friendly terms, has written to Sir Trev saying ‘ your memory is as bad as your manners.’ Wow! Them’s hard words, Clem.
Sir Cameron, now 63, through the successful musicals he has produced is reckoned to be worth £635million. And to think when he was a nineteen year old unknown he came around to our house in Hackney one Sunday afternoon to listen to the songs in ‘Cupid’ and went away unimpressed. Composer Kenny Clayton and I could have been a part of that £635million. Ah, well, let us not dwell on what might have been. It was not to be and one has to accept that.