Past Times
search for a hit record led a young Paul Nicholas to work with an up-and-coming songwriter who went on to become world famous as David Bowie.
“I’d brought out a couple of songs and was looking for another and someone told me about this guy called David Jones,” remembers Paul. “I met him and we talked about songs. At the time he was with a publisher and he was trying to get his songs recorded. We spent an afternoon together and he told me he was into mime and he showed me a bit of what he did.
“We ended up recording a song called Over The Wall We Go. A lot of people were breaking out of prison at that time and David sang on the track as well. In the middle of the record he also read out a roll call of names and I was going ‘Here... here... here.’
“It was the only time we met, but I did the song on The Ken Dodd Show. It ended up being banned by the BBC though because the lyrics included the line ‘All coppers are nanas’ which was probably a little bit strong.”
Paul has included the rare Bowie recording on his new 3 CD collection, Gold, released this month to tie in with the publication of his memoir Musicals, Marigolds & Me.
It spans a career that has seen Paul enjoy chart hits and stage success in some of the biggest musicals around from the taboo-breaking Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Grease and the Pirates Of Penzance to Barnum and Fiddler On The Roof.
He found TV fame playing Vince Pinner in BBC sitcom Just Good Friends with Jan Francis, played vicious cousin Kevin in The Who movie Tommy and recently took part in the BBC series The Real Marigold Hotel.
“Hair was my first big role,” says 76-year-old Paul. “Princess Anne knew one of the girls in the cast and came to see it three times and ended up dancing on the stage. A lot of famous people came to see the show – John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Judy Garland, Katherine Hepburn and Gregory Peck.
“The show helped me a lot. I was a little bit lost then. I was 23 and not really going anywhere. Getting into that show gave me a lifeline and a sense of what I wanted to do – singing, dancing and a bit of drama as well.”
Paul was rock ‘n’ roll kitty Rum Tug Tugger in Cats but remembers how they never enjoyed a first night curtain call because of a bomb scare. “Brian Blessed went on stage and said ‘I’ve an important announcement. We’ve had a bit of a bomb scare and would everyone leave the theatre’.