The Devil Rides Out Musical - How it all started

Dennis Wheatley

Colin's vision and dream of writing a musical based on Dennis Wheatley's wonderful novel The Devil Rides Out goes back a long way. He was lying in bed reading the book and saw something strange moving in the corner the room.

Of course this turned out to be just his bathrobe hanging on the back of the door.

Many, many times he went back to the book and re-read it, even though he knew the ending!

He recalls one afternoon when sat at the piano and said to his brother "I'm going to write a musical based on The Devil Rides Out. " Ten minutes later his fingers wandered over the keyboard  and hit the chord of 'A minor' and wrote the title song in about 10 minutes. It was pure inspiration, the whole show was written on inspiration - including many cups of tea.

Of course the novel is owned by the Wheatley estate and Colin had to get their permission to write and produce such a script. To cut a long story short, Dominic, Dennis's grandson, telephoned Colin and he explained what he had been up to. He played Dominic a track over the phone and thank God he liked the music.

This led to a meeting in London where Colin recalls the a wonderful moment driving through London with Dominic with his music blaring out on the car stereo.

The picture on the left depicts the moment when Colin and Dominic opened a paper parcel that contained Dennis Wheatley's original manuscript.

This was the first time that it had been opened since 1934.

Events moved on and planning was soon underway for a stage production at the Neptune theatre Liverpool.

Soon the public were to witness one of the most powerful musical experiences of the century, set against  the mystique and lure of a gripping satanic novel.