21 December 2015

Paper Lace: The Musical Is A Rip-Roaring Success

Paper Lace The Musical
Paper Lace: The Musical?

Some nonsense that I wrote for possible inclusion in an article we ran in the December / January 2016 issue of LeftLion. It didn't get used.

The musical based on the hits of 1970s rockers Paper Lace has been a re-sounding success with a run of sold-out performances at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal.

Titled Billy Don’t Be A Hero after the band’s 1974 smash-hit and penned by Notts-scribe Billy Ivory (Made in Dagenham),  it sees the former Opportunity Knocks stars back catalogue re-worked in to a story about a young boy who attempts to ride every ride at the 1977 Goose Fair with a belly full of mushy peas and cocks on a stick.

This late-flush of success for the band is owed to recent Nottingham-breakthrough acts including Indiana, Sleaford Mods, and Jake Bugg all name-checking Paper Lace as massive inspirations and thanking the band in paving the way and laying the foundations for future generations of musicians to make it big outside of the city.

Jason Willamson from Sleaford Mods who teamed up with Paper Lace to write a brand new song for the musical titled #SillyBilly said, “Paper Lace are real icons in my eyes, up there with Badfinger and Mungo Jerry for me. The real deal.”

Philip Wright from the band, “I never really thought I would see the day when our music would come back like this. I had Cliff Richard on the blower asking if we could collaborate as he’s looking to kick-start his career. I had to let him down gently. You’ve got to be careful haven’t you? All those allegations. We don’t want to be tarred with the same brush. Not when it’s going so well for us again”.

While Jake Bugg says of the effect Paper Lace’s music had on his formative years,” I first heard We've Got The Whole World In Our Hands by accident. It was so irritating I couldn’t get it out of my head for days.”
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