The ‘Incredible Bard’, David Cohen, thinks this book is straight off the ‘do-da’. He says things like that! I called him at home one evening, and his wife, Janet, answered the phone. As I was talking to her, I heard barking in the background.
‘Didn’t know you had a dog, Janet.’
‘It’s David,’ she said. ‘He’s barking at a letter from the bank manager.’
My kinda guy!
Married to Janet, and with daughters Nicola and Lucy, plus the five grandchildren, David has been involved with a number of projects in the creative industries, including with several musicians. In the ‘early days’ he managed two successful shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he then helped Amazon River adventurer Alan Holman get his record-breaking kayak journey published by Hodder and Stoughton, before conceiving of and co-writing The Buskers: A History of Street Entertainment (with Ben Greenwood), which David & Charles published in 1981. It turned out that this project dovetailed with David’s political interest in the challenges that face inner cities, and community central area futures, and he became a frequent guest on national and local radio, as well as lecturing on his different projects. He also went on to create a successful writing workshop for HM Prison Service and lifer groups, where he encouraged his ‘charges’ to put pen to paper and be legally creative; while using his very short play, Don’t Be Late, to demonstrate that ‘anyone can get the public’s attention, if they really want to!’
‘Don’t Be Late is one of the highlights of my career to date,’ he’ll explain to anyone who cares to listen, referring to a dramatic work that lasted fifty-three seconds and was performed thirty-two times in a single evening of theatre, whilst allowing the audience to see one show in simultaneous performance on television through a TV stage prop. ‘Indeed, I think it was this joyful experience that caused Ian to invite me to work with him on his life story.’
With the new manuscript complete, David’s ongoing plans include finishing a musical play based on his first novel, The Fields of Thyme, which was successfully self-published in 2013 by Neaptide Projects (Salcombe) Ltd.