AS patron of Perfect Pitch Musicals, Stephen Fry himself says, 'I think we sometimes forget in Britain just how extraordinarily good we are at musicals'.

Along with Broadway, the West End leads the way in some of the biggest and most successful shows in history and it still, occasionally, provides the platform for something new and innovative.

Increasingly though, and mostly down to the exorbitant cost of putting on a West End show, the incubation of a new musical takes place outside of the capital and that’s exactly what is happening later this month at the Mercury when the world premiere of Pieces of String takes to the stage.

But just how does a show like Pieces of String get to the stage in the first place?

In this case, it was a student showcase, more than five years ago, when producer Andy Barnes went along in the hope of seeing something new and exciting.

“And that’s what we got,” he tells me. “It was at Goldsmiths and among the many pieces we saw was a piece written by Gus Gowland.

"It was part of a project the students had been set to write a 20 minute musical and his piece just jumped out at us.”

With book, music and lyrics all now written by Gus, Pieces of Strings crosses the generations when Jane returns from her father’s funeral to start clearing the house she grew up in.

Packing away the family photographs, she isn’t prepared for the untold story she’s about to discover threaded through her past, a story that threatens to unravel her relationship with her own children and shake her understanding of who she is.

Andy adds: “We worked with Gus on a couple of workshops with a few different directors and over the years it’s had quite a bit of development, including some work with Daniel [Buckroyd, the Mercury Theatre’s artistic director].

"So when it came to finding the show a home we had a few conversations about putting it on at Colchester, and thankfully we’re finally here.”

Andy, along with wife Wendy, runs Perfect Pitch, a not-for-profit theatre company dedicated to creating new British musicals.

Established in 2006, they work in collaboration with venues, writers, producers and creatives all over the UK and beyond to create, develop, produce and license high quality new British musicals.

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Wendy and Andy Barnes with Michael Ball. Picture: Inta Lankovska

Andy says: “We work together with the writers and composers throughout the journey of the musical from initial idea to full production, offering creative and dramaturgical support, workshops and readings along the way.

“Once they are fully developed Perfect Pitch licenses the shows to both professional and amateur companies in the UK and overseas.

"To date, our new musicals have had full productions all over the world including London’s West End, New York, Korea, Japan, Belgium, Mexico and California.

“When we began, back in 2006, we simply requested submissions of new and innovative musicals to showcase to an industry audience.

"The writers agreed to cast, rehearse and ‘produce’ their own shows within the showcase, whilst we provided the venue, design and marketing.

"We produced the Perfect Pitch showcase in this manner for two years presenting 22 shows with varying degrees of success.

“It became apparent that the best response we could receive was ‘that show has real potential, let us know if or when something further is happening to it, but nobody would take the financial risk on these embryonic pieces to take them to the next stage themselves and we had no infrastructure in place at that time to take any shows beyond the showcase.

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Gemma Sutton, William Thompson and Michael Crawford in The Go-Betweeen. Picture: Johan Persson

“In many ways it was easy enough to provide a one-off showcase or even a short run of a production on the Fringe, but we realised what was really necessary to progress and improve new British musical theatre was to find a way of connecting with the producers and venues, who are able to take the shows on to full production and finding how we can work with them to create longer term existence for the new work.”

Which is what Andy and Wendy started to do.

Since then they’ve had numerous successes, including their first West End show in The Go-Between starring Michael Crawford.

“It’s quite a holistic approach,” Andy says. “Sometimes it can be just the person we like and we’ll go about nurturing them as a composer and writer. Getting them used to the industry, taking feedback and pushing them towards industry contacts.

“Other times it’s working on a particular show like Pieces of String, working on the material and seeing what works in theatrical sense. What needs to be done to make it better.

"At first we always ask the question is this something we believe can reach the stage and then after that we try and make it happen.

“The Go-Between, whilst an encouraging ‘success’ story, indicated to us the amount of development and workshops a show really needs to reach its maximum potential.

"Whilst we only needed to offer that show three workshops and the showcase, the musical was already some way down the development line as it had been ’growing’ for a few years already.

“What’s been great about Pieces of String was the fact we were there right from the very start.”

Directed by Ryan McBride, Pieces of String runs at the Mercury Theatre, Balkerne Gate, Colchester, from April 20 to May 5.

For tickets click here or call the box office on 01206 573948.