All Balls and Glitter by Craig Revel Horwood

Author:Craig Revel Horwood
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-84317-630-5
Publisher: Michael O' Mara Books
Published: 2011-01-05T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13 Toil and Trouble

From 1998, I spent a great deal of my time in Europe. My old colleague Ken Caswell started putting on productions in Amsterdam and other European cities, and he asked me to do some choreography with him. I appreciated the opportunity to gain experience overseas, which would hopefully ensure that I wouldn’t make an idiot of myself in the UK when I came to take up my first West End choreography brief in my own name.

In Holland, I choreographed Fiddler on the Roof, then Titanic: The Musical, and I also directed and choreographed Dutch productions of Sweet Charity and Copacabana. I was doing one show a year there and it felt like my second home. I adore Amsterdam and I love the Dutch because they are a friendly, amiable nation. The gigs did involve me being away from Lloyd, but he would come over for a week, and was always there for the opening night. We were never apart for longer than a fortnight.

When in Rome, as they say, you do as the Romans do, so I admit I have been known to try the hash cookies and space cake in Amsterdam. The problem is, you don’t get very much work done. Crossing the road, meanwhile, is downright hazardous. If a bike doesn’t run you over, a tram will. They come at you from every direction, which isn’t at all safe if you’re high.

Harder drugs, however, have never been my thing. As with cocaine, I wouldn’t want to repeat my experience on Ecstasy. I couldn’t control it; if I’m drinking, I’m all right, on the whole, but I really don’t like losing control.

I took my first – and only – Ecstasy tablet one New Year’s Eve. I was at a gay club in Brighton, with Lloyd and his mum. Everyone else on Ecstasy gets up and dances, but I just ended up sitting down, in a corner, staring into space all night. I can remember everything that happened, and I wasn’t much fun on it. It’s ironic that it makes everyone else think they can dance, yet it stopped me from boogieing altogether.

It’s funny what you recall. Lloyd’s mum had a backpack on and she was dancing with a gay bloke with no shirt, who was wearing flashing fairy wings and was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was a peculiar night. I’ve had much better evenings on a glass or two of champagne.

The gigs in Europe provided invaluable experience. The ongoing tour of West Side Story, in which I took the role of associate director/choreographer for two-and-a-half years in the late nineties, was also significant. All my other jobs, such as Martin Guerre, Hey, Mr Producer! and Fiddler slotted in around West Side – I had a lot of balls in the air. The tour was organized by production group Pola Jones and went backwards and forwards across the UK, including two runs in the West End.

The company were completely mad. The story of the

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