Julian Slade

Where did you have your first professional acting experience?

At the Bristol Old Vic. I was a student at the school there, and I used to be allowed to play First Lords and Messengers and Flunkies and things. But after a year, the producer, Dennis Carey, persuaded me that my talents did not lie in that direction, and that I better stick to music.

Your critics say that this fantastication, this disregard in the story for time and space, is a weakness. Why do you stick to this particular kind of story?

We haven't always stuck to it. We tried something different in Freya's Air. We tried to write a more coherent musical comedy in the strict sense. But in Follow That Girl, indeed, we have preserved a loose shape because we find that it gives us a release to do whatever we like to do. And I find that particularly with music, that I want to feel completely free to express myself without being tied too much to a story.

How closely do you collaborate with Dorothy Reynolds? Do you sit round a table and hammer out each line together, or do you communicate on the telephone, or what?

Uh well at the beginning stages we talk and talk and talk. And as a matter of fact, the the thing that we do concentrate on most of all, believe it or not, is the story, because however slight that may be, that is obviously the backbone of the whole show. Once we've got that clear in our minds, then we parcel the work out by songs and scenes and decide which of us is more suited to write.

Is there any major ambition still in view that isn't fulfilled?

Indeed, there is. I certainly want to go on writing musical comedies, and I'd like to write a big one. I should like to have one at Drury Lane, for instance, one day. Also, I should love to write a a comic opera.