So it all began when I was about 5 years old, and of course, as young boys tend to even at that age, I had a crush on a girl in my class - and she was selected to play the princess in our kindergarten version of Sleeping Beauty.

So of course I auditioned for the role of the Prince.

And I got cast as the Prince's horse.

And ever since then I've been trying to make up for the pain of that first disappointment.

Even if that isn't completely true (though it did happen), at least it's a good way to begin the tale.

Don't you think?

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Oh, well, alright then...

It really began with words, wonderful words, a world inhabited by words and stories, and something, perhaps genetic, perhaps magical, made me gravitate towards words, their sounds and their meanings. Words are wonderful because they give things meaning. Words are potent. Words are funny. Words make wonder. Words are magic.

As a child I lived for words and for stories. And as I grew older I realised that faces and bodies and movement spoke as much as words did. I was fascinated by music, dance, poetry and performance in all it's forms. To me, this was a magical world, something removed from simple, mundane existence, where time existed in a form we allowed it, as did space, and the entire journey was one made up of pure emotion, pure feeling, pure wonder, and of course - magic....

For me the world of the theatre has always represented an alternate reality, and in that, at least, I have never grown up. I've always believed in magic, some little part of me has always remained that little boy, staring wide-mouthed and wide-eyed up at the magical figures that weave their worlds under the arclights, and nothing gives me greater pleasure than the knowledge that I have always been part of that world, now for almost as long as I can remember...

I love the theatre...

It flows in my veins....

It is, in many ways, distilled down to the bare minimum, the very sum of my existence.