And, like all ambitious mums, she pointed me, and a little later Julian, into the direction of a musical instrument.
"I suppose it was natural for her to push us forward. She thought the violin was the instrument for me, but it didn't work out. Going through my old things recently, I was amazed to discover that I got a grade 5 in the violin when I was six. I can't imagine how, since I can't even remember how to hold one, let alone play it. I had much more fun with the French horn. I also learnt the piano. But I think I realized quite early on that my interest was the theatre, and it was not an area that my parents really knew.
"I do know my father had a repressed side of him which liked popular music, though he dared not let it out. It's in his music in spades. He was a frustrated composer, really, but it would have been difficult for him to come out of the woodwork because the music he was writing was, by definition, terribly unfashionable. I think there was an element in him that would have liked the freedom to do what I do, but he was very wrapped up in running the Royal College of Music at the time.
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