P. R. B .

At the moment I am writing a new draft of the musical book and also trying to sex up our ACE proposal. Steve, the composer has been working on THE COUNTRY WIFE at the Haymarket and Clive Paget, our dramaturg/director is working on RENT.

I have been a bit manic trying to get more investment in the show and, as you can imagine, it has not been easy. I got a very nice letter back from Richard Stilgoe, who wrote lyrics for Cats and Starlight Express and collaborated with Charles Hart with lyrics for Phantom. He said he really enjoyed our songs but didn't have enough clout to be able to help. He reminded me that Morris refused to have anything in his house that was not useful or beautiful and "that seems a perfect rule for the content of a musical as well". I agree but even Morris needed money to run his business.

Peter Dunphy, Senior Designer at Eyeframe has agreed to work as multi-media designer on the ACE project, which is pretty damn fantastic! Eyeframe did the post production work on Pan's Labyrinth and he has won a lot of awards, so I think we will be in very good hands.

Clive has won the Encouragement Award from the Writers' Guild. I nominated him months ago, for being my guide and mentor since the first scrappy draft of the musical. We would never have got this far without him. We are invited to a Guild lunch at the Old Vic on 23rd November to celebrate!

The Dulwich Picture Gallery have just started a series of lectures on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and so I thought I ought to go along as a little refresher. I did a lot of research for the musical in the early days but still try to keep my hand in, just in case something new crops up which I think ought to go into the book. Val Woodgate, who lectures for the Tate, hosted the first talk - "What's in a Name" which was a general introduction to the PRB. I did glean a couple of interesting bits of information, so it was useful. She was an extremely funny and down to earth speaker. I just kept longing to stand up and tell everyone what Rossetti's joke name for the initials stood for, but didn't have the courage, there were too many white haired Dulwich ladies who might have been shocked. Most people think of Rossetti as a purely romantic figure, they'd never guess he said PRB stood for "Penis Rather Better", but do I put this in the book or not? Perhaps it ought to read Producing Rather Bloody. Oh well, at least the battle for POSSESSED is still being fought!


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