DAZED DAYS
I first met Zig when our oldest children, Dean and Lorna, attended the same playgroup and then Primary School in Epsom at the beginning of the ’70s. We quickly began a fruitful song-writing partnership, knocking out rock ‘n’ roll numbers, some of which appeared on Zig’s albums Running and Yesterday’s Dreams.
Songs, ideas and dreams were conceived and kicked around – scripts for a TV comedy show and a thriller amongst them – often during or between marathon backgammon sessions. Occasionally the routine would be broken up by a frenzied session of Shuttlepuck, a torrid ice-hockey table-game, which was liable to stoke up the adrenalin levels alarmingly. Whatever the games, creativity was never far away and neither were vast quantities of alcohol and other recreational substances. In fact creativity and alcohol merged one night when the wine and beer had run out, and the infamous Brantique, a vicious but delicious concoction of Brandy and Tequila was born. These sessions continued for years: often they wouldn’t start till around midnight, when Zig was playing Frank’n’Furter in The Rocky Horror Show at Kings Road, and would normally end around 5am, at which time I would crawl off to bed for a couple of snatched hours before setting off for work in London. Zig, on the other hand, would sleep in till late morning then settle down with a full English breakfast, a few cups of tea and the inevitable roll-ups. Come to think of it, 30 odd years later nothing much has changed!

THE MAID AT THE DOOR
The idea of Virgin Warrior was hatched one such evening in 1985 after Zig, who was at the time teaching drama in Epsom, was moved by a student’s rendition of a line from Jean Anouilh’s The Lark, a play based on Joan of Arc: ‘I take back my promises and I withdraw my admission of guilt. I’ll hide no more.’ It stayed in his mind and proved to be the catalyst for Virgin Warrior.
And so I began reading up about the legendary young maid, and the songs began to evolve. Some originated with melodies Zig supplied me, some were reworkings of numbers we had already written, but most started with my words which Zig took off and worked out on his guitar.
By the end of ’85 the songs were finished.
Around this time Robin Hodgkinson, the director of the Epsom Playhouse was planning the Epsom & Ewell Festival, and having heard about our project offered us a slot in the 10-day event to perform it. So there we were, sandwiched in between ‘An Evening with Richard Stilgoe’ and Mendelssohn’s Elijah, set to rock on a Friday night on May 16, 1986.
Thus began a frantic period of activity knitting everything together to meet the deadline. Zig and I were invited to one of the monthly Playhouse performance & chat sessions, during which Zig performed a couple of the numbers from the show and we outlined our objectives for Virgin Warrior. Local press coverage and interviews followed, including an interview on County Sound Radio, which all gained more publicity but, crucially, allowed us to continue advertising our search for the girl to play Joan.
Auditions were arranged at Epsom Playhouse and a veritable phalanx of pretty young girls turned up and performed for us throughout the day. Still undecided, and with the auditions virtually at an end, in burst a breathless young girl with an unruly mop of red curls, dressed in a dishevelled school uniform. With no fuss, she promptly belted out a scorching version of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘I Need A Hero’. Energetic, charismatic, singing lustily from the heart, little Sami Walter had arrived and delivered in spades. We had found our Joan.

THE SHOW MUST GO ON
The rest of the cast was assembled at a further audition, and rehearsals began in earnest in January ’86 at Wallace Fields Primary School. David Jones, a music teacher and old friend and Salvation Army acquaintance of Zig’s was brought in to arrange the music, and a band of old mates – Dave Johnson, bass, Chris Parren, keyboards and Kitty McLaughlin, drums – was assembled under the leadership of Derek Griffiths, a noted rock and blues guitarist.
As rehearsals continued, the workshop production was augmented by YES, The Young Epsom Singers, whose choral director was the innovative Andrew Scott, the music teacher from Wallace Fields. Even the costumes were produced by local talent, as the First Year Fashion Diploma students from the Epsom School of Art and Design were co-opted into the production.
As the performance date loomed, the cast were put through their paces at Wallace Fields at weekends, whilst the band would assemble in my front room on any given weekday to fine tune the score.

DELIVERANCE AND TRIUMPH
The tight schedule wasn’t helped by Zig’s absences in the last few weeks due to his participation in Yesterday’s Dreams, a Central TV serial in which he had a lead role. This caused a major problem when it was revealed that he was required to shoot a final scene in Birmingham on the day of the performance! On the eve May 16 we spent the whole of the night and early morning at The Playhouse, erecting the set consisting mainly of scaffolding and finishing at around 6am. Zig was then whisked off to Brum by car and shot his final scenes before being flown back to Epsom by helicopter in the early afternoon.
I had arrived at the theatre late morning to find action aplenty and hitches galore. The dry ice had run out, so I ventured north to Croydon to find supplies. I returned to find a minor chaos ensuing as the Technical Rehearsal got under way. I was greeted by the late and very talented young actor David Jessiman, who rushed up to me exclaiming: ‘It’s a shambles, a disaster, we’ve got to do something…’ Musicians, actors and the musical director, David Jones, all seemed to be at loggerheads, and the show was running very late. However, Zig was soon back in the stalls with me and by the time the Dress Rehearsal was staged later in the afternoon, the show was in fine fettle and enjoyed by a full house.
The evening performance was a triumph with everybody pulling out all the stops, and the audience, who included many friends and family, as well as Seb Coe and legenday music producer Tony Visconti, lapped it up. We’d done it! The after-show party was one of the best nights of our lives, well, possibly the best.
Over the next few months, we tried to take it further and nearly succeeded on many occasions, but our fortunes were far from enhanced by another production of Joan of Arc called Jeanne, which preceded Virgin Warrior by a couple of weeks, ran for a while at Sadler’s Wells, had a lot of money spent on it, and, er, stank the place out.
So 19 years on from its conception, here we are. Zig has been working with Sev Lewkovicz in his Haywards Heath studio to bring Virgin Warrior out of retirement. She’s about to return, blazoning new songs and fresh armour. Once again, the dream’s alive!

PETER PERCHARD