I was a founder member of the New D’Oyly Carte Company at the Savoy: Yeoman of the Guard (Sgt Meryll), Iolanthe (Private Willis), Mikado (Pish Tush) and Pirates of Penzance (Sergeant of Police) (last one recorded), and spent several years at the Coliseum with English National Opera playing in Pacific Overtures (Shogun’s Mother) – coached by Stephen Sondheim! died and went to heaven!, Die Fledermaus (Frosch), Street Scene (Harry Easter) (there was a lovely young song and dance girl called Catherine Zeta Jones in the cast – I wonder what happened to her?), and Orpheus in the Underworld (Mars). All of those recorded as well.
Trips abroad include: Paris for Curlew River; the Batignano Festival in beautiful Tuscany, singing Il Ritorno D’Ulisse in Italian to an Italian audience (brave or what!), United States and Ludwigshafen with ENO, and Opera Omaha and Portland Opera for My Fair Lady (Col Pickering). Short National Theatre season at the Royal National Theatre in a new opera, Baby Doll as Archie Lee. With Modern Music Theatre Troupe I had some quick changes in Stephen McNeff’s The Waste land at the Covent Garden Festival (also in Hay-on-Wye where it rained so hard we couldn’t hear the orchestra in the big plastic tent!). Lots of great stuff with Music Theatre London Don Giovanni, Marriage of Figaro, Cosi Fan Tutte, Boheme, Falstaff, touring the Netherlands, and seasons at the old Drill Hall, London.
With Lincoln Theatre Royal I did Annie as well (Daddy Warbucks) and took that and Peter Pan (Captain Hook) to Malaysia, 6000 feet up a mountain. Also with them I was in a comedy called Five Blue Haired Ladies on a Green Park Bench (Marvin, William Morris and Richard) which did a season and a tour.
At the Players’ Theatre Club I was a Music Hall Turn and was often the Chairman, introducing the acts and interacting with the audience.
Most recently I’ve been working with Charles Court Opera, a vibrant young company, doing Pantos, Gilbert and Sullivan and avant-garde concerts, and had three summers in Buxton at the International G&S Festival As Mikado, Private Willis and Adam Goodheart (not all at the same time, though!).
I’ve got quite a long recording catalogue; and on TV Crackerjack (Crackerjack!)in which I was a jewel thief disguised as Cyrano de Bergerac, Get Well Soon (Doctor Waxman), and Cambridge Spies (Sir Clive Woodham).
Films for Capriol Films include Falstaff on location at a derelict Golf Course in Norfolk; La Boheme on location in a newly redeveloped part of Greenwich; Warlock: Some Little Joy (Augustus John), and Draw on Sweet Night (Anne’s Father). For Porterhouse Productions, Out of the Shadows (Dr Winston), this one with a Red Carpet Gala.
I’m on the Vocal Faculty at TrinityLaban Conservatoire in glorious Greenwich. Many of my past students have gone on to success in the West End and International stages, and in films and television. I still teach privately.
I’m so lucky having been able to meet and work with the greats of the entertainment industry, Sir Tom Allen, Leslie Crowther, Arthur Askey, Sir John Tomlinson, Lynda Baron, Michael Ball, Keith Warner, Anthony van Laast and Kenn Oldfield, to name but a few!
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