Week Five

Email to Giles Croft
Wednesday 9 July 2008

Hi Giles

Hope you are well. Received signed contract - thank you. The Ashes is going well. I met with Peter Wynne-Thomas at Trent Bridge last week. Unearthed a photograph of Harold Larwood meeting Gracie Fields (attached). This is the beginning:

The audience walk in. Gracie Fields is onstage. Singing songs from her 1929 revue The Show's The Thing. Larwood and Voce are sitting on the front row. Larwood steps up on stage to meet the singer and the photograph is taken. The original appears on screen. The piece is framed around photographs in the archive. Larwood and Voce at Trent Bridge in 1977. Larwood in his sweet shop in Blackpool etc.

I wonder if we need to check copyright situation for songs before I continue with this idea - don't want to fall into The Girl Can't Help It situation. Let me know if you would like to meet up over the summer to catch up or read extracts from the work so far. Also - thinking of submitting an extract to the Nottingham Writers' Studio showcase event at the Royal Centre in September. Will keep you posted.

All best

Michael