West End Royalty.

I must admit I do like a bit of variety in my ‘working’ life.  I put the word working in inverted commas because it’s not like I do a proper job is it? 

Last week started with a radio show in Cardiff for the BBC, a theatre performance for Talking Pictures in Monmouth and a trip to host a mid-morning show in Keswick in the Lake District on the following Monday morning.

This week has been radio programmes every morning since last Sunday, helping Kev John’s host the Swansea City Funday at the Swansea.com stadium and doing the odd radio interview to promote my October concert at the Swansea Arena.

Probably the most exciting event of the week is something that has been in the planning for a couple of months, with a West End Superstar, who really is the girl next door. Ria Jones is quite simply West End Royalty.  Music and theatre was deeply embedded in her family growing up in Cwmbwrla.  Her mum Avril was a Grand Theatre stalwart and her brother Ceri Dupree is said to be the UK’s No 1 Female Impersonator, a term that really does not do justice to his craft and wardrobe.

It soon became clear that she would chase her dreams and it didn’t take long for those dreams to come true.  At the age of 19 she was playing the lead role in Evita before going on to play the leads in Chess, Cats and Les Miserable.  As she was starting out there was another Jones starting to make a name for herself in London.  With 8 shows a week the Jones girls would often make a mad dash down the M4 in Ria’s car for a few days being spoiled by their respective mams.  When Ria tells the stories of those early ‘hungry years’ that she shared with Catherine Zeta Jones you can see in her eyes they really were magical times.

Ria Jones in the studio with Mal.

Ria was already a star when I first worked with her.  It must have been around 1995 and I was working on an idea for a musical for the Grand Theatre entitled’ Copper Kingdom’.  It’s all very well having an idea for a show or musical, but people want to hear what it will actually sound like before they commit the money.  To give me the best chance of getting the project off the ground I wanted the very best to sing my demos.  First I roped in Steve Balsamo and I think it was Steve who gave Ria a call.

Ria and Steve agreed to join me for a short extract from the new show at one of my concerts at the Grand Theatre, Swansea. By the end of the evening, after hearing and seeing Ria and Steve’s stunning performances the musical had been booked into the diary by the theatre management.

Over the years Ria has been a regular guest on my radio and TV shows but sadly I’ve never been able to book her for one of my musicals.  Every time I’d write a new show I would get in touch as soon as possible to see if I could persuade her to come home. Sadly, with Ria being in such great demand and with her having to commit years in advance to long running shows it never quite happened.

Over that time, as well as starring in the West End, Ria has also performed at numerous Royal Varity Performances and starred in shows for the Danish Royal Family.  She has also toured the UK in a show with her brother.  In recent years she came to National and International attention again by accident. 

Everyone loves a selfie.

Years ago Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber had asked Ria to help out with a workshop of a new musical he was working on, ‘Sunset Boulevard’.  At the time she was too young to play the part of Norma Desmond on stage but as she finished the workshop she did mention to the boss that she would love to play the part someday.

Years later Ria found herself working in a massive production of ‘Sunset Boulevard’ starring the Emmy Award winner Glenn Close.  Tickets for the show were changing hands at over £150.  So, you can imagine that when some people turned up to the London Coliseum to be greeted with a sign saying Ms Close was indisposed, well, they weren’t very happy.

Some asked for their money back and left the theatre.  Others had missed the signs around the theatre and had taken their seats expecting to see Glenn.  When the announcement was made that the part of Norma Desmond would be played by an understudy, understandably there were boos and catcalls.

That was when Ria Jones walked onto the stage and into West End history.  At the end of her performance there were 5 curtain calls and a 6 minute standing ovation. Someone once said to me luck is when opportunity and preparedness come together.  Although she had never played the role with that cast and orchestra Ria was more than prepared for her time in the spotlight.

Last Christmas Ria came home to perform at the ‘Maggies’ Swansea Arena show.  It had been too long since we last had a catch up, so we arranged a quick coffee before she drove back to London.  Somehow the subject turned to songs and I asked her if she had written much.  She said she couldn’t.  Now that reminded me of a story Johnny Tudor tells about the legendary Dorothy Squires.  Johnny also answered a similar question with a similar reply to which Dot Squires said, ‘how do you know if you’ve never tried?’

After some intense questioning it became apparent that Ria did write, she wrote poems.  As she left the Observatory on Swansea Bay I made her promise to send me a few poems as soon as possible. She was as good as her word and before Christmas I had sent her a ruff demo of our first song.

On her next visit home Ria popped into my studio to add a vocal and by late spring we had taken the tracks to the Czech Republic to add the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.  Now I thought Ria’s original vocal was amazing, but she is a perfectionist and wanted to do it again with the full orchestra arrangement…but when???

Finally this week I managed to pin her down. Tim Hamill’s Sonic One Studio in Llangennech really is world class but because of that its always fully booked. When I rang Tim and explained the situation he offered to stay late on Wednesday evening as he didn’t want to miss the session either.

When Ria and I arrived we were greeted by that other West End legend in my life Steve Balsamo. Steve was just finishing off his own session with Tim. As we prepared the studio for the recording and filming session Steve and Ria caught up with stories about mutual fiends they had in the business.  To them they were old work colleagues but to me, the names I ‘accidently’ overheard were some of the biggest names in musical theatre.

It was dark by the time we walked out of the studio, but we left with a brand new song recorded and a video filmed.  As we work out the best way to share our ‘baby’ with the world I must admit I pinched myself to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming and smiled to myself at another amazing chance with work with some of the greats.