MUSIC

Gillian composed the music for The Ballad of the Artificial Mash, a musical play by Peter Terson. This agricultural satire, with lyrics by Terson, opened at the Victoria Theatre, Hartshill, on 5th September, 1967. The following year, the television producer, Leonard White, chose the show to be the 400th and final Armchair Theatre production. It was transmitted twice: on 25th July 1968 on ATV Television and on 27th July 1968 on ABC Television. Gillian was Musical Director for the television production and taught the songs to the actors in that production. The cast included Stanley Holloway OBE, Alfred Lynch, The Paper Dolls, Mark Dignam, Valerie French and Derek Francis (who played Major Fatstock Gadget). Additionally, Gillian played a small part in the television production (The Average Newspaper Reader's Wife). See Leonard White's memoir: Armchair Theatre, The Lost Years.

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Gillian wrote music and lyrics for the two theatre documentaries she was involved in, at the Victoria Theatre, as well as acting and singing in these productions. In The Knotty, a documentary which opened in July 1966, about North Staffordshire's famous railway, Gillian was commissioned by Peter Cheeseman to write a song to close the first half of the show. "What about?" she asked. "About railways - but not about railways," Cheeseman replied. The song Gillian wrote is called Railway Lines.

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The second theatre documentary Gillian was involved in, Six Into One, opened in July 1968, at the Victoria Theatre. This is a documentary concerning the federation of Stoke-on-Trent: the amalgamation of six towns into a single county borough. City status was granted to Stoke-on-Trent in 1925. Gillian and Guillaume Oyônô Mbia, who played the talking drum, wrote and performed the narrative songs for the show.

 

In 1972, Gillian appeared as Catherine Tekakwitha in Conversations, a musical revue based on the songs, books and poems of Leonard Cohen, at Hampstead Theatre Club. The show was produced by Greengage Productions, directed by Roger Christian and featured Sean Hewitt, Claire Marshall, John Plume and Gillian.