I have wanted to adapt Shakespeare's beautiful late play The Winter's Tale for many years. There are several reasons for this. Whilst it's not as overtly 'magical' as The Tempest (Which Shakespeare wrote at roughly the same time) it has its own very special brand of magic in it, especially the final scene, in which like Mozart's inspirational opera Don Giovanni, a statue apparently comes to life, transforming all who witness the miracle. What composer wouldn’t want to have their own stab at such a moment of theatre and emotional awakening?

The play’s story, though it appears at first to be about paranoia and power, unfolds into a parable about the redemptive gift of youth: it basically says that young people have the potential to make the world a better place, and usually do, even if the generation that raised them has mucked things up big-time. I identify strongly with this sentiment, being an unabashed supporter of and admirer of young people, so it seemed completely right that the musical adaptation should be focussed on the young. It was commissioned for the opening of The Sage, Gateshead for its opening in 2005, to be performed by 30 or so local young people with a band of musicians from the many traditions and genres represented by the Music Education Centre based in that building – folk & classical instruments, as well as steel pans are brought together for the Winter’s Tale ‘orchestra’.

Shakespeare was about my age when he wrote his play and from its optimistic themes we can deduce that he had an unusually ‘modern’ philosophy of life, believing that the young should marry for love, that the social divisions caused by wealth, politics or nationality were artificial and cruel. There is one song in particular in the musical, The same sun shines, which expresses, more or less, my guiding principle in life: that we are all equally worthy of respect and deserving of love whatever our upbringing. It originates in Perdita’s speech about the Bohemian King Polixenes, “I was about to speake, and tell him plainely, The selfe-same Sun, that shines vpon his Court, Hides not his visage from our Cottage, but Lookes on alike”. For me, this is the heart of the whole tale – that the hierarchies of class are meaningless and destructive and that the young, for a glorious window of opportunity, see this more clearly than all of us. It is therefore wonderfully apt that the piece should be performed this year by the brilliantly gifted young performers of YMT:UK. The story of A Winter’s Tale could be an anthem for YMT:UK members, who themselves come from every conceivable background to come together and perform musical theatre. I am absolutely delighted that Nick Stimson, the best director of young people alive in British theatre, was able to help me adapt the play (called ‘book’ in musicals) and thereafter to direct the production as well. The guy’s a magician.

A Winter’s Tale is my own personal favourite of all my 8 or so musicals, partly for the beliefs expressed in it and partly for the music, which I – in all humility – feel is my best for the theatre (other people can make their own minds up, of course!). It is an unashamedly emotional story with equally emotional and passionate music. Because the plot is neatly divided into 2 distinct acts, 16 years apart, in different countries and very different worlds, I was able to have great fun with the musical styles in the two different sections: act one is a dark, brooding, angry place, full of anguish and violent passions, with much layering of voices and interweaving lines to give the impression of a confused, demoralised, totalitarian society. Act Two is all about sunshine and redemption – the music starts to let its hair down, and we bathe in the warmth, humour and joy of a youthful summer of love. For me as composer/lyricist to be able, in the musical’s closing scenes, to bring these two worlds colliding into one happy resolution, was an incredibly rewarding challenge. If the musical’s first audiences in Gateshead and subsequently in Rochester are anything to go by, any parent watching the finale is likely to be in floods of tears. Above all, this musical adaptation of A Winter’s Tale is a heartfelt, unapologetic vote of confidence in young people and the bonds of love they are able to sustain against all odds.