I was born in 1948 and brought up in South Croydon. My grandmother was a good pianist, and loved playing popular songs and show songs. She would accompany my grandfather, who was a fine singer. They provided my first taste of music as popular entertainment.
Unbelievably (to anyone who has heard me sing), as a child I had a good treble voice and sang with the Royal School of Church Music – another invaluable strand in my musical education. But I studied Spanish at Bristol University and was only gradually drawn back to music through involvement with student shows. Theatre beckoned once I’d graduated, and I spent the next 20 years working full-time as a composer and musical director in theatre, along with work on radio and in children’s TV.
Radio 4’s I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, which I joined in 1975 just after it had started, had two major live-show spin-offs for me: firstly, Barry Cryer and Willie Rushton’s brilliant Two Old Farts in the Night, and secondly and concurrently Barry’s own excellent one-man show, which has gone through many titles and permutations. Currently named Strictly Come Joking, we play it regularly round the country.
In the late 80s I started freelancing as a music and singing tutor at various drama schools and in 1990 took the plunge to go full-time at Rose Bruford Drama College, as Head of Music and Singing. I continued this strand of my career as Head of Music at East 15 Acting School 1998-2015.
While the teaching was richly rewarding in its own right, I revelled in the flexibility it gave me to continue working freelance in professional theatre and as an accompanist in cabaret and music hall. As well as working with Barry and Willie, I regularly accompanied Libby Morris in her show through the 80s and 90s.
If I was weaned on show tunes, as I grew up my chosen diet was jazz. My greatest inspirations were initially Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans. So improvisation has always been key to my music-making. I pursued an interest in cinema, doing a Masters (2002) and then a PhD (2008) at the University of East London. It seemed a natural development to combine music-making with cinema and so around the mid-noughties I started working as a piano accompanist to silent movies.
Improvisation and the capacity to compose and accompany at the same time has enabled me to work with London’s Comedy Store Players. Joining them on their musical evenings has given me some of the best fun it’s possible to have at a keyboard.
Though I still guest at drama schools for particular projects, composing continues to dominate my professional life. I’m working on a thru-sung piece of my own set in a spa town (working title The Cure). This genre – mainly sung with minimal dialogue – I explored in Black Night Owls in 1982 and Iron Harvest in 1983. I’m also writing the score for an off-the-wall musical by my friends Stuart Olesker and John Stanton, set in medieval Europe and about animal trials.
Colin Sell 