Negative things, and they were all deliberate and I'm not going to say who they were but I know who they were and it was in the business, and that's not a good sign.

We felt we had to know something of his back story. I don't think people in the cinema would just accept that he's there. I think we had to learn how he (got there).

I'm going to take the kids away over Christmas but I don't, I've written 14 musicals now, I don't want to rush into doing something just for the sake of doing it. I want to do it when I find a story.

If you know what you want to do, as I always loved musicals, and then to have been lucky enough to be successful with them, I think that's all you can ask isn't it? I think I don't really think too much about it. I am a bit shy socially, yeah, I admit that.

In Evita I wasn't really hugely involved with it. I gave a little bit of help but they needed a bit of technical help on the movie and so some of my music people went in at the end of the movie and helped out with it.

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.

Two years ago I hadn't even thought of the Woman in White, and I was doing a television show and I said I hadn't found a story and the next day somebody rang me and said have you ever thought of the Woman in White.

Well the least favourite question is the one that one's asked particularly about in Japan is what's the difference between theatre and cinema and I think, well, that's about eighty bucks.

Well we'd just seen Gerry. I think he wanted somebody who had that authority and was handsome. The thing is, he's a big hunk isn't he? All I can say, if you look at his chat line, or the Phantom website, it's quite worrying. Because the girls really seem to love him.

Superstar was made so early in my career I had nothing to do with it at all. The first time I saw it was the opening screening.

The next few years are going to be horrendous in the UK. The last thing we need is a Somali pirate-style raid on the few wealth creators who still dare to navigate Britain's gale-force waters.

When we finally came to start work on this, the joy was it was only Joel and I, we didn't have to answer to anybody, and we didn't have to submit a screen play or anything like that. We just wrote it and then made it.