It Was 20 Years Ago Today…

I was walking along the Bay yesterday morning when something hit me like a thunderbolt out of the blue, to the point where I really did find myself stopping in my tracks. 

Over the past week I have been changing my online music distributor.  I’ve been releasing records on my own MPH Records label since 1990 so there were a lot of old CDs and digital music files to go through.  Hearing lots of old songs has really been a joy as I remember where and when we were when we recorded them.

When I started writing musicals I would often release an album of songs even before the show was completely written as it gave people a chance to hear the type of musical that was coming.  By the time the show was on stage new songs would have appeared but too late to make it to the album which was captured on CD. 

The first song I wrote for ‘Amazing Grace’, the musical about the 1904 Welsh Revival was ‘Why Me’.  I had been thinking about the musical in 2002, 2 years before the Centenary.  An initial meeting with Gary Iles the manager at the Swansea Grand Theatre led to a meeting with Olivier Award winning Director Michael Bogdanov. 

Robert Barton – Evan Roberts in First Production.

Before that meeting I thought I’d better give him a flavour of what I had in mind. I wrote a song about Evan Roberts, the young revivalist at the centre of the story, as he wrestles with a belief he has been commissioned by The Almighty to lead a worldwide religious revival from Loughor.  It’s a song of hope as well as doubt.  I had wanted to put the musical on stage in time for the 100th anniversary, but Michael’s commitments meant I had to wait a little longer to see my dream become reality.

As I was working on reuploading the ‘Why Me’ Album I wondered if I might take some of the songs written subsequently that became part of the show.  The trouble is, those demos have me singing everyone’s parts from Evan’s mother, father, sister brother even a complete congregation!!  All of this must have been going around in my head as I walked along the bay when the thunderbolt struck.

Back at the turn of the century, when I asked Michael Bogdanov could we stage the musical in 2004 he said no.  At that stage I thought the meeting was over.  Then he said…but we could try for 2005.

As I walked on the sand I thought to myself, I wonder when in 2005 we staged the show.  I reached for my phone, tapped ‘Amazing Grace’ Swansea into google and there is was.  20 years ago ‘Amazing Grace’ premiered at the Swansea Grand Theatre…20 years ago this week!!!

All of a sudden so many memories and emotions came flooding back to me.

There was so much work in the months leading up to opening night. Yes I wrote all of the music, but I don’t actually ‘write music’, you know the notes on a stave. By using some pretty clever musical software packages I was able to take the notes I played on my keyboard and output them as a written score.  The strange thing was this score wasn’t for the band.  I wouldn’t attempt anything as ambitious as a stage musical without bringing in my band The Jacks and we never play from music.

The score was actually for everyone else involved in the show, from the actor/singers to the stage management who would cue lights and sound effects by reading the bars.

Casting a show of this scale was a totally new experience for me. I knew who the band would be, but the selection of the actors was down to Mr Bogdanov.  The only person I knew I wanted for the show was West End Legend Peter Karrie.  Peter is literally dynamite on stage.  I had seen him perform the role of Phantom of the Opera at a special concert to mark the closing of Cardiff Arms Park and he literally held the crowd in the palm of his outstretched hand that night.

Peter Karrie as the Rev Peter Price.

The wonderful thing about this first production was that we were all in it together and all rehearsing in the Swansea Grand.  It really felt that the whole theatre was working together to make the show happen. People say that a musical isn’t written, it is rewritten!  As rehearsals progressed you could see opportunities to add a song to tell the story more clearly or take one away if it was slowing the show down.

It was probably a week or so into rehearsal when I thought Peter needed a song to explain the motivation behind his character’s antipathy to the young Revivalist.  Peter was cast as The Reverend Peter Price, a real person who had written a letter to the Western Mail early in 1905 claiming that Evan Roberts was leading a sham revival. I didn’t want Price to be a Pantomime villain.  I wanted the audience to understand and even feel sympathy for his actions. 

Rev Peter Price confronting Evan Roberts in Rehearsal

It was then I thought about the story of the Prodigal son who took his inheritance and spent it all on parties.  He comes back thinking he might get a job from his father but all the while his father has been looking out for him and is overjoyed to see his face again.  He then tells the servants to start organising a party and to kill the fatted calf for a barbeque.  He then takes off one of his rings and puts it on the finger of his prodigal son.   At this point the prodigal son’s older brother comes back from work, something he has done faithfully whilst all the while his brother was off partying He is angry and jealous, and you can sort of understand why he would be.

The subsequent song ‘You Never Threw A Party For Me’, really did stop the show every night with Peter ending on his knees and the audience on their feet.

Michael Bogdanov was a theatrical genius. He knew how to get the best out of me, the actors and he knew how to manipulate the emotions of an audience.  In reality the story of the Revival seems to end in failure. Evan Roberts has a break down, rarely speaking again in public. Michael knew we had to send the audience out uplifted. 

I had written a closing song called Warm Wind.  Michael took that basic song and set it like an up tempo gospel hymn in a tent revival meeting.  As the cast sang, Evan Roberts climbed across chairs, through the audience and out through the front of the theatre, blessing all as he passed.

My final memory of the premier week in Swansea.  As I arrived for our final days performances I was greeted by the news that we had done it, we had just gone over the £100,000 mark for ticket sales.  I was obviously delighted that the show had done so well but even more so that everyone at the theatre had played their part and had felt pride and ownership for every ticket sold.