He’s hotter than Wasabi/ But does he love Ken or Barbie?

I should explain how this came about: the year before, I had helped to programme the first year of the Divas at the Donmar season, and amongst my inspirations were to invite Imelda, who had previously appeared there in Alan Bennett’s Habeas Corpus, to be a part of it. Following her cabaret success in London, she took it to New York to the Firebird Cafe on West 46th Street - the restaurant is still there, but alas the cabaret room isn’t — and I went over to see her again. Jim and Bessie went with her, of course, and so it was that one matinee day we all went to see Charlie Brown at Broadway’s Ambassadors Theatre, along with my friend Philip.

But the way she became a Diva at the Donmar was purely chance: I was en route to a meeting at the Donmar about the season, and popped into Dress Circle on the way. She happened to be in there, talking to them about putting on a cabaret at the New London Theatre’s Talk of London room, and I interrupted: would she like to be a Diva at the Donmar? As she said in a programme note, it all happened “because I met a man in a shop.”

And talking to Michael Ball about how this production of Sweeney Todd came about, it turned out that not only had he had initiated it all, but Imelda was entirely his doing, too - and it’s quite a similar story to how she became a Donmar diva. She met a man on a radio station; specifically, Michael Ball on his Radio 2 show. As he tells it, “It happened three years ago on my radio show. Imelda came on and in between records I asked her if she fancied playing Mrs Lovett and she said, ‘All right then,’ but it has taken all of this time for us to get together. There was never anybody else considered or wanted.”

Back to the London Charlie Brown on Saturday, it is directed by Anthony Drewe, one half, of course, of Stiles and Drewe, and just as Leanne Jones has gone from the Shaftesbury to the pocket-sized Tabard, so Anthony has downscaled considerably from Betty Blue Eyes at the Novello, too. It could become a whole new verse for Sondheim’s I’m Still Here (and Anthony could be the man to write it!), which already has the line, “Top billing Monday; Tuesday, you’re touring in stock, but I’m here”.

And fast forward one day: one day you’re directing at the Tabard, the next day another musical you wrote is receiving its world premiere on Shaftesbury Avenue! Last night Drewe was back in the West End, as composer of the long-gestating Soho Cinders, which he and George Stiles first workshopped parts of with students at Arts Ed (next door to the Tabard, as it happens) in 2002.

Their work on adding new songs to Mary Poppins got in the way of taking it further, but seven of the completed songs were featured in a 2008 concert A Spoonful of Stiles and Drewe that was presented for one night at Her Majesty’s in 2008 to celebrate the 25th annviersary of their writing partnership. That night was recorded — and funnily enough featured Leanne Jones on a couple of the songs!

Then Betty Blue Eyes interrupted again - and so, finally, last night saw the world premiere of the completed Soho Cinders finally appear at the Queen’s Theatre. It had finally arrived on Shaftesbury Avenue, but the only pity is that it was for one night only. It had a West End dream cast, including Michael Xavier, Sharon D Clarke, David Bedella, Hannah Waddingham, Clive Carter and Beverly Rudd, plus some brilliant new faces to me, Jos Slovick, Amy Lennox, Suzie Chard and Richard David-Caine. Also on hand as a hilarious narrator was Sandi Toksvig.

After the retro (and intentionally dated) feel of Betty Blue Eyes and Mary Poppins, it was refreshing and exciting to hear Stiles and Drewe in a more contemporary vein, with this hip re-write of the Cinderella story in which Cinders is a Soho rentboy and his Prince Charming is a bisexual London mayoral candidate. The world’s collide when one of the mayoral candidate’s chief financial supporters turns out to be one of the rentboy’s clients. Any similarity, presumably, to London mayoral candidates past, present or future is no doubt purely coincidental; likewise the rentboy’s story. But the show is packed with some of the best songs Stiles and Drewe have yet written, driving character, plot and wit in perfect harmony (in every sense), and it was wittily and fluidly staged by Jonathan Butterell with ace choreography by Drew McOnie.

It certainly proved to be an innovative - and very public - way to offer a fully staged workshop and backer’s audition rolled into one, and I hope the show gets a future life: I’d love to see Soho Cinders at the Soho Theatre, if only to see that billing outside the venue. Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to the live CD that was recorded last night by SimG Records, who are doing more for new writers as well as older ones like Stiles and Drewe than just about any other label around. (Next up, they are issuing a CD of the work of the wonderful Dougal Irvine).

Recordings are, of course, the other key way to get your work out; and another very promising younger writer, Tim Prottey Jones, has now followed his first CD “More with Every Line” that featured singers like Julie Atherton, Daniel Boys, Jessie Buckley, Louise Dearman, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt, Aaron Lazar, Jon Lee, Stuart Matthew Price and Rachel Tucker, with another, “Surrounded By the Sounds” that includes Michael Xavier, Lauren Samuels, Emily Tierney, Alex Gaumond, Jon Robyns, John Owen-Jones and Sarah Lark. He launched the new one with a short concert at Dress Circle on Saturday morning that I also popped into. His songs have a punchily distinctive rock edge, and I’d love to see them become part of a show one day. It’s a fresh, vibrant contemporary sound that could take the modern musical in a new direction.