When Blur first started and we were playing Manchester the Hacienda was the place to go. That was where a lot of exciting stuff was happening and London was pretty dead.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
You know Manchester is always a bit of a hard place for people coming from London, just with all the history. Manchester has this immensely huge and healthy history musically.
London had so much death in its history, it was hard to find a spot without spirits. They formed a safety net. Still, you had to hope the ones you got were good.
London has this culture of the theatre that is so big, it was a like a dream - but I never had a thought to be able to play here because my English was not very good. So being given the opportunity to come work here was like a gift.
It must have been an extraordinary time. I guess the worrying thing about musical theatre to me, is if you look at the London season this year, mine is actually the only one to have come in.
I'm very fond of an old map of London that used to belong to my father. I'm a big London fan, and the evolution of the city is astonishing, when you look back to Pepys and how small it was - everyone knew each other.
Joy Division sounded like Manchester: cold, sparse and, at times, bleak.
When I first started coming to New York in the early Nineties and seeing the vitality of the programme compared to what was going on back in London or Paris, it was just in a different league. It's like a 16th-century court.
I've been to London twice. I saw the Broadway show 'Billy Elliot' there - phenomenal. I was crying through the entire thing.
Manchester City, the club and the fans, they were amazing. But I'm sorry, the city wasn't that nice. I was all the time at home, and I didn't enjoy it. It was raining all the time. I was a little bit upset.
As a student in London, I had seen so many shows, so many plays and had seen so many greats of the day.