Back On The Town

With my latest tour done and dusted 10 days ago, Mary Poppins finally flew off and we flew back into Heathrow with the aim of getting back some sort of normality. Dubai lived up to the adventure, having been driven around the nearby desert, sailed around the Palm Jumeirah, thrown myself down slides at the nearby waterpark and enjoyed some amazing local foodstuffs. 30C temperatures awaited us back in London, a bit of a shock to the system after a month of 40C...! OK, not really.

After a weekend of relaxing and re-acclimatising, I got straight back into London life, learning two of the three keyboard chairs for ON THE TOWN, a new run of the show taking place outdoors at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. I spent most of last week there, sitting in and playing for some of the performances. I can't wait to see it from out front, but from my vantage point within the band tent, it sounds spectacular. The audiences appear to quite like it, too!

As well as that, this month is largely about prepping for two other projects: a collaboration with my sister, writing two songs for the Tram Tracks project, celebrating 25 years of Manchester's Metrolink, commissioned by the Bridgwater Hall, due to be performed later this summer. In all, over 90 songs are being written, one for each stop on the network. We have been asked to write a song for Timperley, the station near to where we both get up, and Broadway, a stop in Salford Quays within proximity of The Lowry. The latter song is being written for the Lowry Chorus to sing.

My other project, equally as exciting, involves taking over as Musical Director on THE ADDAMS FAMILY UK Tour from mid-July. It's a show I'm only mildly familiar with and it's tremendously exciting to be joining a brand-new production, especially one that I've been hearing hugely positive feedback about. My tenure with the show kicks off in Southampton and the tour currently runs through until early November.

I'm also looking forward to another few days back with my parents in Cheshire, once again perfectly timed with Father's Day, as well as catching some West End shows when my mum pops down South for a visit. All in all, I think that's June sorted! See you in July.