The Show

Paul - Theatre Of Floyd

A chaotic childhood seems to be the backdrop to many creative lives. I’m the youngest of nine siblings who all at one point shared our family home together. As you can imagine noise was always the backdrop to my childhood and when everyone slowly left home I was the last one who remained with my Dad.

I had to fill the silence and now with a large bedroom all to myself and complete with a snooker table and record player I listened to the sounds of The Police, U2 and Duran Duran amongst other mostly 80’s tracks. My brother Ian was always my music influencer, he looked cool too, dressing like Billy Idol and really looking the part. I didn’t appreciate at the time what an incredible era it was for music with such an array of different sounds but also fashion was as varied as the sounds coming out at that time. I remember as a teenager wearing an RAF jumpsuit and also a black suit with gold pin-stripes amongst other outlandish outfits.

Mum and Dad had separated when I was two and my Dad brought us up in the family home with the help of a live-in housekeeper he found through the Salvation army. Phyllis was her name and she was my replacement mother figure. Her brother Henry was a magician who we went to see perform on many occasions over the summer at holiday camps in Somerset and Devon. It was very exciting, he would get me up on stage to help with his show and from there on I was hooked. Magic was my first hobby and at the age of 13 started to do public shows myself.

 As a teenager I loved to belt out songs in my room, I couldn’t do it that well at the time but I remember even then trying to figure out how to do it better and noted that the engine room for the sounds I was making changed between the diaphragm, throat, head etc. Apparently, so I was told years later by secondary school friends, I used to sing at school all of the time. My English and form tutor encouraged my path into acting having seen me perform in school productions. I didn’t have the headspace for much else other than sports and consequently left education with a pretty poor record. 

I’d always wanted to work at a holiday camp given my fond childhood memories and with my experience as an children’s entertainer and having won some karaoke competitions for my singing I got a job as a ‘Redcoat’ at Butlins in Bognor Regis performing children’s and family shows most days for nearly 3 years. It was a wild time for sure but also a valuable experience. When I left Butlins I was keen to carry on living life to the full. I auditioned for TV’s ‘Stars In Their Eyes’. I got on to the show impersonating Bono of U2. It was filmed in the summer of 2001 and off the back of that I placed an advert in a local paper reading ‘Looking for The Edge and Adam Clayton’ to form a U2 tribute with myself and friend Simon Dodwell. There was only one reply from Ady and Simon (the Bass and lead guitarists with U2UK) . We hit it off and just a few months later we did our first gig on the same night S.I.T.E was aired on TV on March 30th 2002. 

Approximately 1 year later the landlady of a pub in the hope valley Derbyshire booked the band and within another year we were married and had our daughter Georgi. Through thick and thin both my wife and I have stayed together and so have the band for over 20 years now. 

In more recent years there had been talk within the band of other music projects but Pink Floyd was the one that gained traction. I hadn’t in all honesty listened to much Pink Floyd. I wasn’t for sitting down and listening to music and preferred throwing myself around the bedroom impersonating Freddie Mercury, Bono and Bon Jovi and listening to more punk, rock styles. That’s the only reason I can think of as to why Floyd had passed me by to this point. I wanted to dip my toe in the water however with this new project as I had no sense of whether I’d enjoy it or whether I’d be able to do justice to the songs.

After well over a year of rehearsing and taking in these new sounds I’m absolutely hooked, not only with the music but this great group of talented and down to earth people. It’s a tall order keeping any band together but after well over a year of rehearsals, swapping and changing the setlist we know we have something very special happening. It’s going to be an exciting ride and we hope you will join us for it. Here’s to 2025 and beyond.