Everyone associates Andrew Lloyd Webber with his original writing partner Tim Rice - but actually, Lloyd Webber has now collaborated more frequently with another lyricist, Don Black, who has written the lyrics for Tell Me on a Sunday, Aspects of Love and Sunset Boulevard, as well as providing additional material for Starlight Express and Whistle Down the Wind.

This year, Lloyd Webber (acting as producer, not composer) called him in to write words to AH Rahman's music for Bombay Dreams, currently at the Apollo Victoria; and Black is about to be represented by his English adaptation of the French musical version of Romeo and Juliet, opening next month at the Piccadilly Theatre.

Future projects

Lyricist extraordinaire Don Black

It's amazing, though, that this 64 year-old veteran of pop, film scores and musicals (he won an Oscar for the theme tune to Born Free) has the time to stop and eat.

As well as two major West End musicals this year, he's also just re-worked and expanded Tell Me on a Sunday as a vehicle for Denise van Outen, which was recently premiered at Lloyd Webber's private Sydmonton Festival, and is currently also working up a new musical version of Dracula which is bound for Broadway.

"It's been a busy year", he agrees, "but even though it's been busy, I'm not as busy as people think. I think about people like Michael Parkinson or Terry Wogan - they're busier."

"It's not like I have to turn up at the BBC at a specific time to do my job - I can write at my leisure. And what exactly have I done? Written the lyrics for about 20 songs! I may be simplifying it, but it's not exactly Trojan work!"

Effortless

Black, who is naturally modest, self-effacing and a little mischievous, too, does have a habit of making it all seem so effortless - both in conversation and on the stage, where his words simply flow.

"That's because I enjoy it. It's a joyful thing to do." Romeo and Juliet, in particular, was "a dream assignment".

For a change, the music was already written - "so there was no need to work with composers, and that took the stress out of it!" With a literal translation and a copy of the CD to hand, he says, "I sat down and went to work."

Airmiles

The job has taken him from the Indian slums of his last project, Bombay Dreams, to Verona - "I've been collecting a lot of airmiles!"

And he's likely to add to them as he criss-crosses the Atlantic for his next show, Dracula, co-written with composer Frank Wildhorn and playwright Christopher Hampton:

"We were hoping to go straight to Broadway with it, but the people who have to put up $12 million are a bit nervous, so we're doing an American tour first next summer".

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