Chapter 7. Stag Epilogue
So 'Stag' was never performed again, but that is not quite the end of its story. Using the results of the two recording sessions at Pennine, plus hours and hours spent by Chris and his friend Tony in polishing up the best versions of various live recordings of the remaining songs, a CD of the whole show was produced that is an excellent memento of the whole experience.
A few years later – I can't remember when this was – Chris answered a call put out by Cameron Mackintosh for a search for new musicals and entered 'Stag'. It was short-listed to the final 6 and one Saturday he and I met on a train and travelled together to London for an interview and presentation. This went well, but later we learned that in the end no overall winner was selected.
I still found it hard to let go of it completely and during 1981/2 I rewrote it as a novel. I wanted to explore in more detail still the nature of the relationships between Sally and Peter, Sally and Maestro, Sally and Herne. Satisfied with the result I sent it off to various publishers. For a time Hutchinson's looked as though they might take it up, but in the end didn't, and I didn't pursue it further. I felt that finally I had exorcised the story from me completely and, for better or worse, it is what it is. It exists now in various formats, therefore – a musical play, a CD of songs, and a novel – and I like to think that they complement one another. But that was then: they are very much of their time, though I must admit it's fun now to look back and reminisce. It was a significant achievement, and once again Chris and I were incredibly supported by the spirit of Genesis. Everyone involved not only gave up several months of their lives to rehearsing and performing the piece; they then also committed a number of extremely long and intense weekends in the studio to record it – all of it unpaid – astonishing. Thank you, everyone.