BIOGRAPHY
Stephen has written the music and lyrics to five original musicals: Great Expectations (2002), Treasure Island! (2003), The Wind in the Willows (2008), The Railway Children (2011) and Arbuckle (2016). The last three being in collaboration with writer, Ben Sleep; their most notable success being the The Wind in the Willows UK tours in 2009/10 and the extended tours of The Railway Children in 2016/17. Two songs from Treasure Island will be used in the forthcoming feature film, Little Darlings (ManMade Productions). He has also 'collaborated' with a certain Roald Dahl on some songs for James and the Giant Peach, produced over Easter 2014 at the Gordon Craig Theatre, Stevenage.
After an arduous two years' gestation, Steve and Ben are proud to announce the safe arrival of their most recent offspring - a musical based on the 1921 scandal surrounding Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle. It focuses on the crucial drama in his life, where he quickly turned from being a nation's treasured funny man into a toxic figure of ridicule and despair. Sex, jealousy, greed, fame, infamy, betrayal, public anger, press manipulation, they're all in there! The latter two being a particular lightning rod to today's public affairs.
In between his writing, Stephen has spent time as a pianist on a world cruise where he produced arrangements for the on-board cabaret. He is a songwriter, theatre composer and music tutor as well as being a secondary school music teacher for nearly ten years, during which time he regularly taught singing and directed the music for many shows, including Guys and Dolls, Little Shop of Horrors and Cabaret. He has composed and arranged music for several companies, most significantly for the outdoor touring productions of Mad Dogs and Englishmen's The Medal, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, As You Like It and Henry V and The Tempest for Dramatic Pause Productions). Also, Stephen has been the musical director on a number of shows including Third Theatres acclaimed production of Bizets Carmen.
He takes great care over his own arrangements, orchestrations and the recordings of his own works. More recently, he has taken music theatre workshops for the Brit School; taught at Stagecoach Theatre Arts Schools and has been rehearsal pianist for several production companies. 2016 has seen Stephen appear on stage twice, once in The Railway Children at the Portsmouth Theatre Royal and the other in an open-air productions of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream for which he also wrote the music.
Where does the inspiration come from? Stephen thinks up many of his tunes and lyrics whilst sailing and canoeing around the coast and along the rivers of the UK.