Cork-based father teams up with  daughter to write a musical

“YOU’VE got to dream as a writer, otherwise you won’t do it.”

So says West Cork-based Steve Rourke, who is writing a musical with his London-based daughter, Sally Williams.

It’s one of a number of writing ventures that Steve has taken on since retiring 20 years ago. He and his wife, both dentists, were “fortunate enough to be able to retire early and move to West Cork, near Baltimore. We worked hard and had good, short careers.”

Steve, aged 72, originally from Durham, has been fulfilling his dreams. He always wanted to run a farm.

“We had a small holding with cows, pigs, sheep and chickens. My grandfather had a farm.

“As a young boy, I felt I wanted to farm and decided to do it before I got too old and decrepit.”

No longer involved in farming, Steve has been busy writing.

I had always written a little bit. Getting into writing is difficult. I started about ten years ago. Confidence is the thing. You really need self-belief.

“When I started to devote a fair bit of time to writing, it took a good while to hone my skills. I wrote a novel, historical fiction, set during the Bronze Age. It’s a sort of romping adventure story. I had no interest in it from literary agents, apart from one or two nice comments. It wasn’t the sort of thing they were looking for.”

Steve then embarked on another novel, this time set in contemporary Ireland.

“I decided to go for a popular genre, crime fiction. It’s a police procedural story involving a detective who works with the drugs and organised crime unit in Dublin.”

However, Steve hasn’t so far been able to get the book published. He “sidelined” the novels and started to write short stories. Two of them have been short-listed in UK writing competitions; The Frome Festival 2022 and 2023.

Steve has so far written five short stories that are linked by the same main character called Mally Spillane - a self-employed gardener in Cork. He and the other characters in the stories “portray a humorous but poignant side to their lives in the region”.

Having lived here for so long, Steve was keen to set his stories in Ireland, using the expressions of the Irish. “Whereas some writing is difficult, these stories suit me. I have found a genre I’m comfortable in.”

Steve’s daughter is a great supporter of her father’s writing. “Sally is a reporter with ITV. She does the weather and news features as well. When I get a little block or become disillusioned with writing because of the difficulty getting published, she is very supportive.

“I suggested we do something together.”

Sally is musical; she writes songs and plays keyboards and guitar.

“I said we should do a musical together,” said Steve. “I play a little piano but Sally is much better at music than me.”

She also has a contact that is an orchestrator and has worked with Andrew Lloyd Webber. When the musical is completed, Sally will show it to the contact.

It will be another few months before the musical is completed.

“We have the libretto and quite a bit of the music written,” said Steve. 

It’s set in a school in the east end of London. It features an Irish music teacher who has dyslexia.

“Something I didn’t know is that people with dyslexia find it just as difficult to read music as they do ordinary literature. So it occurred to me that there could be a story there.

“The teacher, Sheelagh, has an ordinary degree as opposed to an honours-level one, so she finds it difficult to get teaching work because of being unable to read music. But the music teacher in the London school has to go out of work for a while because of an accident.

“Sheelagh gets a temporary contract. She turns out to be a gifted teacher and a gifted musician. She transforms the attitude of the pupils to music, bringing out their musicality. The pupils all want Sheelagh to stay on as their teacher. It has a sort of Billy Elliot feel to it.”

The working class pupils had been written off by their original music teacher, Dr McPherson, explains Steve.

“They can’t read music and one of them is dyslexic, like Sheelagh. There’s prejudice against them (by Dr McPherson.)

“These days, dyslexia is much less of an issue. People with dyslexia are cut some slack in exams.”

Sally is writing the music and the lyrics for their collaboration.

“She has already written quite a bit of music,” said Steve. “She performs in schools and at weddings, although not professionally. She can sing and play.” Sally performed at her brother’s wedding.

The musical is being written as a play.

It’s not a sung-through musical. It’s got drama and a plot and is character-driven. We’re doing it mostly by Zoom.

Steve says that while ideas “are ten-a-penny, the most difficult aspect of writing is formulating characters and driving them forward with a strong plot and a rousing denouement.

“You can have great ideas and an idea for a lead character but then you’ve got all your supporting characters that you have to get to work. It’s a multi-faceted exercise.

“We have our plot and our character, our climax and our denouement. We have the music as well. Now we have to decide what lyrics fit the story.”

With a cast of 12, Steve is dreaming big. He would love the musical to have a professional production.

It’s a long way from dentistry. And another accomplishment on the bucket list.