I remember it like it was yesterday. I had worked with the Olivier Award winning director Michael Bogdanov on 2 of my previous musicals. In fact it was down to Michael’s faith in a synopsis I sent him in 2003 of a musical based on the life of the Welsh Revivalist Evan Roberts that I had actually started this phase of my life in theatre.
Guy Masterton, Michael Bogdanov, Mal Pope 2017
I had originally spoken to Gary Iles, the manager of the Swansea Grand Theatre at the time, to ask for his opinion on a germ of an idea I had for a show and he introduced me to Michael. Within 3 years ‘Amazing Grace’ had toured twice including sell out weeks at both the Grand Theatre and the Wales Millennium Centre.
Amazing Grace Returns to the Sherman Theatre in June
It was during the second tour of ‘Amazing Grace’ that Michael asked me what was next. This time I wanted to write a musical about the boxer Tommy Farr who fought Joe Louis for the Heavyweight Championship of the world at Yankee Stadium in 1937. On the strength of that chat and the relationship we had built up Michael felt confident enough to book a tour for the new musical the following year in 2007.
For the next decade Michael and I kept in touch as his work took him back to Germany and I concentrated on building my own theatre in Swansea High Street to develop ‘Cappuccino Girls’. Almost a decade later we thought the time was right to start working together again.
I had always been fascinated by the story of Richard Burton, maybe it was because he came from Pontrhydyfen, the same small village my father came from, maybe it was because he was an inspiration to all us dreamers that it was possible to achieve amazing things even if you came from ‘here’.
Over the previous few years I had got to know Guy Masterson. Guy is an amazing writer, director and performer who also happened to be Richard Burton’s nephew. During one of our chats he mentioned that he had once travelled across Europe with Burton in a Mini Cooper. His uncle had bought the car but had injured his neck so he had invited Guy to drive him back home to Switzerland.
For my previous musicals about the Revivalist and the Boxer I had read everything I could to try to understand the character inside out. I realised if this musical was going to ring true there would be no better collaborator than Guy.
As always with a musical you can talk forever but its’s always good to have a few songs written to share with the artistic team to give them some confidence that the show was possible. As I waited for the stars to align I read every book I could find about Richard Burton and especially his relationship with Elizabeth Taylor. That ‘scandalous’ affair started on the set of the Hollywood Epic ‘Cleopatra’… and so I started to write some songs.
It was in March 2017, after weeks of emails going between the three of us, that we finally managed to all gather at the Curzon Theatre in London. It was such a positive meeting and we pencilled in opening the show sometime late in 2018. It was a glorious Spring day and I remember heading back on the train thinking that it was good to have a deadline and good to have Michael’s enormous passion and energy back in my life again. In less than a month it seemed that time stopped. I still have the email that I sent to Guy breaking the sad news that Michael had passed away whilst on holiday with family in Greece.
Guy and I kept in touch but without Michael in the artistic engine room we both eventually moved on to different projects.
It was a number of years later, on a trip to London, that I bumped into the film director Marc Evans on the underground. Marc and I had worked together on the film ‘Jack To A King’ but it had been sometime since I had seen him. Marc was in London for a meeting with the actor Toby Jones about a new film he was working on about the young Richard Burton. Marc was hoping the film would be ready in time for the centenary of Burtons birth in 2025.
I’m not sure if it was then I started thinking about the songs I’d written about Burton. Maybe it was sometime later as the news about Marc’s film entered the public domain. Anyway, somewhere along the line I must have thought if I was going to do anything with those tunes 2025 might be a good year.
It was in the spring of 2024 that I was a guest vocalist on a touring production of Adrian Snell’s ‘The Passion’. Adrian is particularly popular in Holland and the production had emanated from the Netherlands. I only joined the show in the UK. Most of the band and behind the scenes team were Dutch.
There’s an old joke, ‘What do you call someone who hangs around with musicians…a drummer’. Well that’s certainly not true of Frank Van Essen. As well as playing drums on the tour every so often he would pick up his fiddle and play the most beautiful violin lines. We got talking and I asked Frank if he would be up for working on one of my songs. He said yes, the tour ended, and we both went home.
Now I remember my old boss at BBC Radio Wales telling me it was always good to have something up your sleeve in case you needed an idea at short notice. It was then I looked seriously at the ‘Burton’ songs and found ‘Electricity’. The song was set early in the Burton Taylor relationship just as their love affair starts on the set of ‘Cleopatra’.
At the time Taylor had just caused a scandal by marrying Eddie Fisher who had previously been married to her best friend Debbie Reynolds. At the time Burton was also married with a young family. Maybe they thought it was just an affair that would dim as soon as the film set lights went out. For a time they tried to carry on as normal with Eddie Fisher visiting Elizabeth on the set in Rome. As the weeks passed and the gossip grew it soon became clear that their relationship was ‘Electric’.
Ian Parsons filming at Gwyn Hall.
Within a week or so Frank had recorded the drums and created an orchestral arrangement that mirrored the scale of the inspiration from this Hollywood love story. I added some extra sounds with my band the Jacks and by Christmas the song was mixed and ready for release in 2025.
This past week has been all about creating a video to go with the song and I couldn’t have done it without cameraman Ian Parsons and the use of the Studio Cinema at the Gwyn Hall in Neath.
And so begins the start of another musical adventure. After all these years you would have thought I’d be used to it, but this is the most difficult time for an artist. It feels as if I’m letting one of my children loose into the world on their own to fend for themselves and I’m frightened she won’t survive. I’ll let you know how we get on.
You can stream online form today https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/malpope/electricity