That Boy From The North Country

Well, it's not 'Mamma Mia'... I'm talking about 'Girl From The North Country', the remarkable new play by Conor McPherson with music by Bob Dylan – which is definitely not a musical. And, as with most things that Dylan touches, it has a magic that is quite unlike anything else.

It's on at the Old Vic in London until October 7 and tickets are increasingly hard to come by. The word has got around that this is something special – and it lives up to its billing.

You don't expect something set in 1930s Depression-hit Minnesota to be a bundle of laughs, but there is humour woven in among the tragic storylines, and joyous moments amid the harshness of reality.

It's not a musical, it's not a jukebox musical... and the music that it does use is not a 'greatest hits' selection. It's lovely to hear less feted songs from 'Infidels' and 'Street Legal' being put into a new and passionate context, and the brilliant actors/musicians produce remarkable versions of 'Has Anybody Seen My Love?' and a dead-slow 'I Want You' (in the ballad style you can find on the 'Live At Budokan' album).

To tell anymore would spoil enjoyment of the show. Best thing is to go and see it. You are unlikely to be disappointed.

Happiness Is A Warm Rolls

Picture by LAWRENCE BOGLE

Yes... that's me with John Lennon's psychedelic Rolls-Royce. I had the unexpected pleasure of checking it out on its brief visit to London a few days ago when it was part of a display of famous Rollers at Bonhams in central London.

It normally resides at a museum in Canada, but it was here to help R-R promote a new model – along with cars belonging to Fred Astaire and the Queen.

Lennon took the car to the States in 1970, and ended up donating it to a New York museum to ease a tricky tax situation. It is now reckoned to be the most valuable automobile in the world

Even today, it is still a work of outrageous art. Chums such as Paul, George and Ringo, not to mention Brian Epstein, Bob Dylan and Keith Moon, all seemed to have had a jolly time in the back of the car – which was said to have an extensive supply of drugs and alcohol.

But the exterior was perhaps the trippiest thing of all – a collision of psychedelia with gypsy caravan-style art that defies you not to smile at the irreverence of it.

I thought of it again today when I was in rehearsal with my old band, the Shark Dentists, working on the infernally difficult-to-play Lennon song 'Happiness Is A Warm Gun'. With a little more work, it – and its combination of 4/4, 3/4, 6/4 and 2/4 – should be ready for performing at a little festival in the Midlands next month.