Barry Coleman talks to the author and lead of Starmaker,tonight’s late play on ITVWhat Ray Davies muttered at the end of his White City Festival performance last year was scarcely audible; only the first couple of rows could contain heard it. But it made headlines; the news was that the lead singer of the Kinks was quitting the trade. But the pop world was distinctly unwilling to let him travel, and after a week to consider the mounting evidence that he really might be missed, or Davies changed his mind. Since then he has done two albums that tell stories,and tonight’s play on Granada Television, which he wrote, and in which he plays the lead with June Ritchie. “Starmaker” is unconventional television drama. In it the Star wants to pick up a dinky on the ordinary man (“I feel a whole concept album coming on”) and decides for the purpose of research to become Norman. But once an ordinary man,he can’t resist the impulses of stardom and may in the end become (who knows?) just a figment of ordinary accountant Norman’s pathetic fantasy.
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Source: theguardian.com