11/09/08
We Will Roxette You -
Categories: This job is the unbelievably weird. Guess the two things I'm going to report that I've done in the last 24 hours. Go on. Guess. Wrong.
Thing 1: Yesterday, I had my photo taken at Waterloo station with a signed photo of Arthur Bostrum from Allo Allo. I was the 579th person to have this done. This is Anna Black's project, to promote awareness of ME - her mission is to photograph a good couple of thousand folks holding Arthur's picture - these currently range from Danny Wallace to Santa to David Icke to me. To you? (I don't mean The Chuckle Brothers - I mean if you would like to part of this unique project, let me know and I'll put your details to her).
Thing 2: If you saw my Edinburgh show this year (if not, why not), or know me well enough, you'll know I have a passing interest in the music of Swedish power pop combo Roxette. If you saw the show, you'll know also that I wrote to their management to suggest that I write the Roxette musical, a la We Will Rock You, Mamma Mia, Our House... Well amazingly, they took me seriously.
This evening I met with a lovely Swedish director, in town working on another musical featuring a leading singer-songwriter-converted-Muslim's back catalogue. On the way there, I didn't know what to make of this. Do I present a synopsis? Are they expecting a fully-formed musical? Is this in fact a hidden-camera show? But no, it was not - this chap actually knows Per and Marie from Roxette; they were aware of this idea, and aware he was meeting me, and he even ran a rock club back in the 80s where Per used to play in the days before Roxette. How very, very exciting.
So I am now to come up with something, in the next couple of weeks. Some sort of synopsis, containing Roxette songs, preferably within an early 90s setting. So this year, my Edinburgh show doesn't stop at the end of August. The story goes on...
I normally don't blog about writing projects at such an early stage, but (a) how very cool - did you read the above bit? I could be writing the Roxette musical, do you see? and (b) I normally refrain from blogging about an idea in case someone nicks it. But if anyone reading this feels compelled to write a musical about the Swedish power pop combo, good luck to you. Anyway, there's room in the world for more than one Roxette musical, surely.
The icing on the cake? As we left, this Swedish director mentioned that in terms of plot, one film summed up the angle, tone, sense of fun and time period we should be looking at. I thought to myself, please let this be a film I like, or am at least familiar with. The film he mentioned? Back To The Future, my friends. This is meant to be.
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