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[0:00] Tim Rice: Hello, this is Tim Rice, and this is episode 42 of my podcast, Get Onto My Cloud. On the wall in my bathroom is a Theatre Royal Brighton poster for the week commencing Monday the 6th of November 1944. Every time I repair to the bathroom for whatever and varied reasons, I see and contemplate this marvellous artifact, which proclaims the premiere of Gather No Moss, a new modern comedy by Max Cato, starring Winifred Schotter, Gus McNaughton, Carl Bernard, Sheila Brownrick, and Richard Shane, directed by Lawrence O'Madden, with decor by Leslie Sparks nightly at 6.30, Matine's Thursday and Saturday at 2.30, prior to West End presentation. Prices, including entertainment tax, stalls, six shillings and four and ninepence, dress circle, six shillings four and ninepence and three and sixpence, second circle, two and sixpence, pit, two bob, balcony, one and six.

The most expensive seats in the house at six shillings were thus 30p in today's UK money. The reason this fascinating poster is on my bathroom wall is not because I was at the first night. In fact, when Gather No Moss opened on the 6th of November 1944, I was not even alive. However, later in the play's run that week, I was. I was born just before Curtain Up on Friday, the 10th of November, 1944, and the framed poster was given to me 50 years later, on the 10th of November 1994, by my longtime manager and close friend, the late David Land, who owned the Theatre Royal Brighton from 1984 until his death in 1995. I've never seen Gather No Moss, and sad to say, not too many people ever did, as it failed to progress to the West End.

In fact, it had rather a murky history, which, in the light of today's, how shall I put it, uncompromising attitudes, makes it seem surprising that it even played in Brighton. It certainly wouldn't have a hope of getting on there today. Gather No Moss was originally entitled Ladies Like Them Bad, and only achieved a license from the Lord Chamberlain in October 1944 after more than six weeks of complicated discussion. One of the Lord Chamberlain's readers described Gather No Moss as, quote, a silly, vulgar, farcical comedy which is tedious beyond words to read, unquote.

[2:56] Tim Rice: A sidebar about the Lord Chamberlain. One of the duties for which the holder of this royal post was best known was the licensing of London theatres and the censorship of stage plays throughout the United Kingdom, a role that dated back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, when the Lord Chamberlain was in charge of all court entertainments and even took the players under his personal protection. To assist him, there were three examiners who advised on plays submitted to them. This persisted until 1968, when Parliament passed the Theatres Act, abolishing censorship on the British stage. That year, the great musical Hair was one of the first London shows to benefit from the disappearance of the Lord Chamberlain's role as public censor, and that musical was thus able to include its celebrated nude scene when the entire cast got its kit off.

Plus, feature an interesting selection of graphic words, not previously heard, in a script anyway, on the West End stage. Anyway, back to Gather No Moss. It had a pretty salacious plot, which centred around divorcee Evelyn, played by Sheila Brownrig, who is thinking of remarrying to Major Roderick Adams, Gus McNaughton, but understandably put off by the experience of her first marriage, in which her quote, perfect pig, unquote, of a husband allegedly beat her. Dr. Garth Penn Dennis, Richard Shane, and Pendennis is hardly the most innocent surname to bestow upon a character, tells Evelyn that the Major, her possible second husband, is a bottom pincher who likes looking at dirty postcards and holds orgies in his flat.

Unsurprisingly, these revelations don't help the Evelyn Roderick relationship to progress, and the major reacts in terms and actions that would never make it onto the stage today. I hope you're still with me. Other characters include Pendennis's Valet, played by Carl Bernard, and whose name is Smythe Wallop. Smythe Wallop gets offended when anyone shortens it to a mere wallop, an unsubtle allusion to the theme of the show, which surfaces all too regularly. The important part of Mrs. Wallop, Rosalie Wallop, was played by Winifred Schotter, today perhaps the best remembered of the five actors who gave their all to Max Cato's disciplinary spankfest. Although Max had prudently written the principal spanking scene to be done off stage, very audibly but not visible.

One critic described it as a quote, slick, sophisticated comedy skating gracefully on very thin ice, unquote. However, after its week in Brighton, the show struggled, toured for a bit but never got to London. Perhaps not helped by the fact that in February 1945, the censor received two letters of complaint from outraged theatregoers and had to promise that the production would be investigated. The play didn't sink completely without trace after that, but remains a theatrical rarity, and to put it mildly, would be difficult to revive in these censorious times. So I doubt that I will ever see the play, whose poster I probably stared at for longer than any other in my theatrical career. I certainly can't recall gawping at a Jesus Christ Superstar or a Lion King poster with similar dedication of time or bewilderment.

But of course, my enthusiasm for my Gather No Moss souvenir is because of David Land. His present for my 50th birthday remains one of my most treasured possessions. It's very important to state the obvious that to get going in any branch of the entertainment business, that a creative artist, performer, or writer will find their struggle greatly eased if they have good management. Andrew Lloyd Webber and I certainly found that in David Land.

[6:57] Tim Rice: In 1969, after working together for four financially unrewarding years, Andrew and I signed a management contract with New Ventures Limited, a company run by David Land and his partner Sefton Myers. Sefton was primarily a property developer who had a love of show business, but his investment in several potential entertainment earners, mainly singers, had not been wildly successful. David was brought in to add his agent's expertise to the mix just about the time that Andrew had sent our first album, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, to Sefton in the hope of some financial support. David was not at that time a well-known name outside the entertainment world, but through his own agency and representation of such acts as the Dagenham Girl Pipers and the Harlem Globetrotters when they were in England, had established a highly lucrative, if low profile, operation.

He'd also made a good deal of his money and property, initially in Dagenham, where he'd turned the local female bagpipe troupe into a worldwide attraction. The Dagenham Girl Pipers even played Las Vegas. Sefton asked David to listen to this Joseph album, with which he was immediately taken. David always said that the line about Potifar buying shares in pyramids clinched his conviction that new ventures should represent these young unknowns, Lloyd Webber and Rice.

[8:58] ♪ Musical number: "Joseph's Song" ♪

[10:17] Tim Rice: Joseph was a fairly recent addition to the Joseph score, which had been released as an album at the beginning of 1969. Having started out as a 20-minute school concert in March 1968. On the 7th of February 1969, Andrew and I were summoned to Sefton's office in Charles Street. To our great surprise, we were offered a deal almost before we sat down. What is more, a deal that promised us money, of which we were not overburdened at that point. There was quite a bit of toing and froing before we finally signed the deal, mainly because I was employed by the famous musician and record producer Norrie Paramor, earning a reasonable wage with tolerable prospects of advancement behind the scenes in the record business.

I kept dithering about taking this new venture's step into the unknown to the great annoyance of the unemployed student Andrew, which at least had the effect of improving the new venture's offer considerably every time I hesitated. In the end, on April the 17th, 1969, we signed with Sefton and David. Here's a sample of what I was leaving behind by resigning from the Norrie Paramor Organization. Norrie's most recent number one record, on which I sang in the choruses and made coffee. Lily the Pink by the Scaffold, top of the UK charts for four weeks over Christmas 1968 and New Year 1969.

[11:33] ♪ Musical number: "Lily the Pink" — performed by The Scaffold ♪

[13:16] Tim Rice: And so they gave him medicinal compound. Now we see never heard he drink a drink, a drink to lily, the think the thing, the thing. The savior of the humor and the haze, for she invented medicinal compound, was evident in every case. When her legs they did re-city heat, and so they look dumb, medicinal compound. Now they call her Millie B. Jennifer Eccles and terrible freckles. And the boys all called her death, but she changed with medicinal compound. Now he joins in all the game drink and drink a drink the lily that drink the thing the savor of the human rain was she invented medicinal compound was education every day Lily the pink sheep turned to drink sheep filled up with power up in some high and despite her medicinal compound Sunny pickle lily die up to hell her soul the church birthday did she took win medicinal home the hell angels drink the drink the litter drink the wink the savior of the human rain for she invented medicinal compound was evident in deal with Sefton and David turned out to be a great move for all parties involved, as within 18 months, we were top of the American album charts, and within another year, opening our first Broadway show, Jesus Christ Superstar.

[16:14] Tim Rice: But tragically, Sefton did not live long enough to reap the full benefit of his wise investment. He was diagnosed with cancer just as things were beginning to happen with Superstar. I'm at least glad to say he lived long enough to know that his last show business venture had been the kind of success he had always hoped would match his property triumphs. Neither did he live to see the achievements of his extremely talented daughter Judith Suk, who established herself as a highly original singer and songwriter in the 70s. By the time we'd known David for over a year, I'd formed a deep affection for him. He was beyond doubt a one-off and became one of the most important influences in my life. David installed Andrew and me in a second-floor office opposite his in Wardor Street, where we could carry on with all the non-creative aspects of our work.

[17:05] Tim Rice: David's office was so small and so untypical of a showbiz tycoon that we not unnaturally assumed the poor bloke must be struggling to make ends meet, doubtless financed heavily by Sefton. David liked to say that the decor in his office was early hideous. He shared his tiny domain with the distinguished orchestra leader and film composer Stanley Black, plus two secretaries crammed into a pigeon hole, and a murky back room stuffed full of Stanley's music going back to the war. Stanley did have a piano and a little breathing space in his room, but David, who hoarded for England, had great difficulty in pulling up a chair for visitors to his office without knocking over piles of ephemera, old records and tapes, toys, tins of sardines, airline bags and freebies, strange clothes and ancient photographs, snooker cues and footballs, all collected since his days of flogging reject crockery and daggeram as Dave's stores.

His office was the forerunner of the car boot sale, and as the awards, posters and gold discs mounted during our long association, he was lucky not to have his office declared a health or fire hazard.

[18:16] Tim Rice: David was most reluctant to venture out of his eerie, thus, unlike every other manager or agent I've ever heard of, being extremely easy to get hold of. He was always there. He boasted that if anybody was prepared to come and see him in his office, they must genuinely want to see him and would therefore be unlikely to waste his time. The only complaint I ever had about his premises was his refusal to switch from old-fashioned sandpaper type lavatory paper to the soft but strong tissue kind. I can only assume he bought a consignment of 10,000 pre-war toilet rolls around 1946. I had no idea that he was a truly wealthy man until one evening in the late summer of 1970. I'd been working late in our Wardor Street office and found at around seven o'clock that I was locked in, presumably by the last of the other occupants of the building to leave. I had no master key, and exit via the second floor window was not a practical option.

[19:18] Tim Rice: I rang David at his Crawford Street home, and he said he'd be around in fifteen minutes. I sat at the window watching out for him. Maybe he'd be on foot having caught a bus down Oxford Street or in his wife's minute. After a quarter of an hour, a huge Rolls-Royce purred gracefully down Wardore Street and stopped outside the office front door. David got out and released me. Once it was clear that this was David's car, I never worried about him starving again. David was above all a very funny man and totally unpretentious. He would joke that he was only interested in the acres, but while this was clearly one of his motivations, he had genuine appreciation of what was worthwhile and what was not. Like me and Andrew, he found that a lot of things he genuinely loved were highly commercial and popular. He pursued talents and ideas because he liked them, rather than because he thought they'd make money. They usually did, though.

[20:16] Tim Rice: He was short, rotund, and I cannot think of him today without a smile on his face, and thus a smile coming to mind. The son of Polish Jewish immigrants, he won a scholarship to the Davinant Foundation Grammar School in London. At the beginning of the Second World War, he joined the Royal Army Service Corps as a volunteer. His career in entertainment began in 1945, when he produced concerts featuring such wartime favourites as Vera Lynn, Ann Shelton, and his lifelong friend Stanley Black. That year he married Zara Levinson, a graceful and beautifully spoken lady who was the perfect foil for his irrepressibility. The Harlem Globetrotters and the Daglam Girl Pipers became his two most reliable sources of Showby's income. He organized and presented innumerable British and international cabaret acts for the Variety Club, including an early London performance by the Beatles.

[21:12] Tim Rice: David Land was just as happy chasing two allegedly impossible to get tickets for a pal for an opening night. He always got them, or doing a deal with a fruit stall in Berwick Street Market. He was as happy doing that as he was dealing with the moguls of Hollywood or Broadway. His humour and down to earth attitude dominated his approach to all matters, great or small. He formed a company called Hope and Glory Limited, just so he could answer one of his many telephone lines with the words Land of Hope and Glory. Another company of his called D Land, D spelt D E E, was continually being called in error by fishermen, applying for rights to catch salmon on the River D. For a year or two, he attempted to refer the sportsmen to the correct authority, but eventually found it much less hassle to give permission, which he imagined leading to scores of angry anglers squabbling over prime areas of the D's banks.

[22:11] Tim Rice: He was fiercely patriotic, a great expert on the life and times of Winston Churchill, and felt almost as strongly about Arsenal Football Club. Beyond doubt, his luckiest break was meeting me and Andrew, but ours was meeting him. As a manager, he was fully supportive of everything we tried to do, even when he had initial doubts, as he did for about three hours with Jesus Christ Superstar and for about six hours with Evita. We soon became close to his family as well as to him, his daughter Lorraine and son Brooke, as enthusiastic about their old man's newest proteges as David and Zara were. Those are some of the thoughts which meander by when I'm in repose in my bathroom and admiring the Theatre Royal Brighton poster David gave me in 1994.

[22:58] Tim Rice: When he brought the Theatre Royal in 1984, he revived its fortunes to such an extent it became the most successful regional theatre in the UK. He often subsidized productions out of his own pocket to the tune of 400 grand a year. He founded the David Land Arts Center and Studio there, which provided rehearsal studio and workshop space for professional and amateur theatre companies alike. Furthermore, between 1983 and 1991, David Land was chairman of the Young Vic in London. How he failed to be given a knighthood is utterly beyond me. He deserved one easily as much as Andrew and I did. None of the actors in that first production of Gather No Moss and their director are still with us. Now and then, notably Winifred Schotter, Sheila Brownwick, and Gus McNaught, they crop up in old TV movies, and I'm able to imagine them coping with the challenge of Max Cato's slightly dodgy and now very dated comedy.

I'm sure they delivered and sent audiences home happy, except for those two who complained in February 1945. But nonetheless, to this day it gives me plenty of enjoyable moments in a solitary situation. A chance to reflect on my good fortune in meeting land of hope and glory.

[25:40] Tim Rice: Oh, I don't think it's a good one.

[26:13] Tim Rice: That was episode forty two of the Tim Rice podcast, Get On to My Cloud. Written and presented by me, Tim Rice. And produced brilliantly by Peter Holz.