WC October 19.
What a great start to the week! I left the IW Radio studio on Sunday afternoon and within an hour was interviewing my old friend Aled Jones at Shanklin Theatre. I really felt sorry for him as he had a really bad head cold and had to sing for over an hour on stage. I was so grateful he could spare me a few minutes on a busy day to talk about his new album, due out next month. A real gent.
On Monday night around 9pm an interview was confirmed with the brilliant Jeff Wayne, whose War of the Worlds album has sold 15 million copies. It all happened so quickly and it meant a very late night research session which proved well worth it. At 12-30 the next day I was at his studio, near Radlett, recording an interview. He is about to set out on a huge arena tour with War of the Worlds and some of the venues have 20,000 seats and some are sold out already. What a story and what a lovely guy. So charming and a perfect host. There were about 8 people there working for him and it was such a pleasure to meet them. Then it was back into London’s West End to interview Daniel O’Donnell, another gem of a guy.
I was back in London the next day to interview my old friend Chris de Burgh who has just had a brand new CD album released. I do enjoy his company and he is one of the great survivors in pop music. Listen out for him on JH Meets on Sunday November 2.
On Thursday night I went to see Out of Order at the Shanklin Theatre, performed by the Newchurch Drama Group. Once again, Alan Johnson stole the show. It did not quite reach the heights of their award winning version from 12 years ago. Obviously, there were cast changes. Some really funny moments.