Roger Holman

Roger Holman is a British musician and composer. He is best known for the televised musical ''Smike'', and as the co-writer of Stephanie De Sykes's two hit singles.

As a performer, Holman released a 1971 self-produced single with two songs, "Act Like a Man" and "Back On My Feet", both co-written with his writing partner Simon May. The Holman/May duo released a 45 record the following year using the stage name "Sqeek". In 1973, Holman collaborated with Simon May and Clive Barnett to create the musical ''Smike'', which was televised on the BBC. Holman also co-wrote with May the UK top-20 hits for Stephanie De Sykes "Born with a Smile on My Face", which in 1974 peaked at number two, and "We'll Find Our Day", which in 1975 peaked at number 17. In 1975, Holman released another solo effort on EMI Records performing the songs "Laugh, Laugh, Laugh" and "Lay Your Head in the Grass".

In 2011, Holman wrote a musical adaptation of Thomas Hardy's ''Far from the Madding Crowd''.

Early life

Roger Holman was born on 4 July 1948 in Exeter, Devon. He has a younger sister, Elizabeth. Both of his parents were teachers. His father, Peter Thomas Holman, was an accredited pianist and organist, Licentiate of Trinity College London and an organist at Exeter Cathedral. His mother, Charlotte Jervaise ''(née Downing)'' was an accomplished pianist and was a life-long organist and choir mistress.

Roger Holman was a pupil at Dauntsey's School in Wiltshire where he formed a pop band with Simon May (the composer of BBC TV’s ''EastEnders'', ''Howard’s Way themes'', etc) and three other pupils. Roger and Simon were to form a songwriting partnership that was to last for over a decade.

Professional Careers

Photography

On leaving school, Roger embarked on a photographic course at Salisbury College of Photography followed by three years working as a photographer for large public relations company in London’s Park Lane. Clients he provided work for were diverse and included Carreras Cigarettes, the Scotch Whisky Association, Kellogg's, Optilon Zips, the Arab League and Chevron.

Songwriting & Composer

It was during his days as a photographer that Roger and Simon, who were then in a house-share with others in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, wrote and recorded several songs under the name of ''Simon, Plug and Grimes'' ''(“Way In, Way Out”, “Don’t Push Me”, “Pull Together”'' on the President label, as well as ''“Is This A Dream”'' for Deram Records''). ''They also wrote the song “''Pukwudgie”'' that was to become a minor hit for the comedian, Charlie Drake in 1972. As a result of this, the pair, who had been in a songwriting partnership since school days, were signed to ATV Music, based at the time in London’s Bruton Street. ATV Music retained a lucrative list of budding songwriters, including Lynsey De Paul, Barry Blue, Ron Roker, Tony Hiller and also administered the catalogues of countless others including John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Neil Sedaka.

Between 1971 and 1975, whilst under contract to ATV Music, Roger and Simon composed many pieces in a variety of genres for the ATV Network and BBC TV. One of the most successful was a piece called ''“Clock In”'' that was used by the ITV network as a minute-long link between schools’ programmes, four or five times a day on weekdays during school terms. It was, singularly, the biggest PRS earner in the UK for the entire year in which it ran.

For most of their ATV years, Simon remained in the position of Head of Modern Languages at Kingston Grammar School, Surrey where he and history teacher, Clive Barnett, decided to write a musical as an end-of-term production for the pupils to perform. ''“Smike”'' was born and premiered at the lowly Surbiton Assembly Rooms, Surrey in June 1973. Much to the annoyance of the BBC TV producer and director Paul Ciani, Roger, who was booked to play in the musical’s band at the same time, was unable to fly to BBC Scotland in Glasgow to record the theme song to a new BBC1 TV series that Paul was producing called ''Crazy Bus'', starring the comedians Hope and Keen, Peter Goodwright and Ruth Kettlewell. Having calmed down, Paul asked if he could come and see the musical. As a direct result, ''Smike'' was scheduled in an hour-long potted version for transmission on BBC2 on Christmas Sunday 1973. The TV production starred Beryl Reid as Mrs Squeers, Andrew Keir as Mr Squeers, Leonard Whiting as Nicholas, Christine McKenna (probably best known for her starring role as Christina in 13 episodes of ''Flambards'' in 1979) and Ivan Sharrock (played “Jackie Merrick” for nine years from 1980 in ''Emmerdale'') as Smike. The original cast also featured DJ Neil Fox, a pupil at Kingston Grammar at the time, as one of the schoolboys. The musical was repeated as ''Show Of The Week'' on BBC2 in April 1974 and repeated for a third time on BBC1 TV on Christmas Sunday 1974. In the forty-five plus years since then, the musical has enjoyed over 5,000 performances in schools and by amateur groups worldwide. Two songs from the musical became hits in the UK – ''“We’ll Find Our Day”'' sung by Stephanie De Sykes and ''“Don’t Let Life Get You Down”'' by former Four Pennies lead singer, Lionel Morton.

Another lucky break came in 1974 when, late on a Friday evening, Roger was the only writer in the offices of ATV Music when Len Beadle, the general manager, urgently required a song for Jack Barton, the producer of the ITV soap, ''Crossroads'', who was sitting in his office. Roger suggested his composition ''“Born With A Smile On My Face” ''(a song written for, and rejected, by Jimmy Tarbuck as the theme of the comedian’s new TV series)''. '' The song was hastily recorded by Stephanie de Sykes a week later at the ATV studios in Birmingham and, within three weeks, was number two in the official BBC charts.

Other songs, written by Roger and covered by artists included ''“Grin And Bare It”'' by Barbara Windsor

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