I conceived the idea of “Men Who March Away” in 1992 shortly after the West End staging of “The Hunting Of The Snark”. I decided to write an original story for it; a love story set against the background of the First World War and the Spanish Civil War, ending just as the Second World War begins. Consequently the protagonists grow older and the story spans several decades and two generations. I had extensive discussions in the early nineties with Plymouth Theatre Royal with the intention that we would co-produce it. By then I had finished the book and most of the music and lyrics. We shelved the project at the time violinist Vanessa Mae was introduced to me and I wrote and produced her first and biggest (4m) selling album “The Violin Player” – which was a distraction that was welcome, but which took “Men Who March Away” of the diary, and led to its neglect for a number of years. It was only when I was invited by The Docklands Sinfonia to conduct them at St Anne’s Church in 2017, that I decided to complete the musical, finishing several songs that had been left incomplete, and orchestrating it for the full 70 piece line-up of the orchestra. What started out as an intended concert grew into a public workshop, fully costumed and almost fully staged.
YouTube l inks to the filmed concert version (put together with only 4 complete days’ rehearsal) – can be found at:
Allowances should be made for the ungraded, low budget filming of what was intended only as a workshop/concert.
We are currently talking to various parties about mounting the show as a touring production.
