It would be outrageous to suggest that Jules & Sandy, the pair of bona omis who decorated the radio series Round the Horne, were based on real figures rather than what they were, caricatures of camp characters. However, they were originally introduced to the listeners as Sandy Slade and Julian Wilson, exchanging the first and second names of the two dominant figures in British musicals between Noël Coward and Rice & Lloyd Webber. There was a distinct air of whimsy about both Slade and Wilson's productions, to which Rice/Lloyd Webber was in large part a reaction.
Julian Slade, who wrote Salad Days, died in 2006 and now Sandy Wilson has followed. I believe there is a place on the musical stage for both the hard centre of Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita and the frivolity of Boy Friend and Valmouth and I mourn his passing.
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