WC APRIL 2
Things have started to move at long last and interviews are being agreed. All will be revealed soon. Tuesday was a day to remember. I nipped up to London to interview one of my all-time guitar heroes, Graeme Taylor, from the Albion Band and The Home Service, two brilliant folk-rock bands. I first saw him on the Island in 1978. I had a picture taken with Graeme and I was holding one of his many guitars. Apparently, it is worth £15,000. The first electric guitar I had ever held. At that price – it was just as well I didn’t drop it. I moved straight from there to the West End to interview Ramin, a great star from so many top London shows, including Les Mis, Phantom and Miss Saigon. He’s about to release a brilliant debut album on Sony. Just to complete such a busy day (for an old guy like me) I went to Dirty Dancing at the Mayflower, on the way home. Guys – it’s probably more for ladies. Great fun and some beautiful girls in the cast.
Went to London on Saturday to catch up with Island actor Stephen Wight, who is currently one of the stars in The Ladykillers at the Gielgud Theatre. It’s his last week in the production, as the hugely successful run, which has seen the comedy up for five Olivier Awards, comes to an end on April 14. Stephen has no time off as as he heads into filming a second TV series of Threesome. Stephen went to 3 Island schools and started in a local amateur theatre group.
The journey to London was something of a nightmare and it took over 2 hours to get from Southampton to Waterloo and the same for the reverse journey. It’s normally about 1hr 15. It was the new scenic route via Barnes, Staines, Brentford, Isleworth and others – as the track between Woking and London was out of action. I also managed to fit in a visit to Rickmansworth to catch up with me son, Sean, who now lives there. We had lunch and kept an eye on his phone to catch up with the Saints v Pompey score – a result which neither club really wanted.