That 1980 summer I auditioned and got the part in another theatre musical 'Godspell' at the Palace Theatre, Westcliffe On Sea, which unlike 'Joseph' gave every actor in the cast, a solo song to perform......this was exciting !! During rehearsals too I noticed that all the male actors had exactly the same dark brown hair colour (whereas the girls had a blonde, a brunette, a red head) so I approached the director and suggested that perhaps a male 'blonde' cast member might enhance the overall look of the show......he agreed and thus began my first step toward the hair style that would later help personify the Limahl image.

Many years later Ross Davidson, one of my fellow actors in 'Godspell' joined the cast of the very successful 'Eastenders' BBC TV soap in quite a big part. Spookily too, my character in 'Godspell' was a disciple called Lemar......but this played no part influencing the eventual stage name Limahl which was purely an anagram of my real surname Hamill (switch the L from the end and read it backwards).

'Godspell' was only a month long but was if it was short, it was definitely sweet......it was summer, I was newly blonde and Diana Ross was high in the chart with one of my favourite songs 'Upside Down' and boy did we dance to it at the local Westcliffe discos. The director Chris Dunham was so happy with the success of 'Godspell' he asked most of the actors to stay on for the next production, Agatha Christie's 'Murder at the vicarage' which saw me take on my first acting role as murder suspect Dennis, it was a small part but I did enjoy my first foray into the world of acting.

I moved back to London with some happy memories from Westcliffe and whilst recording more demos, I placed that now infamous advert in music magazine Melody Maker which culminated in meeting the group who's name would soon be uttered in every corner of the globe, Kajagoogoo.

A little trivia......somewhere during those three theatre years, I also appeared in a non speaking part of a 'Clarks Shoes' TV Commercial (oddly enough as a guitarist) and later as an 'extra' in the pop video for Adam And The Ants song 'Stand and deliver'.

My story continues on the Kajagoogoo page......

Limahl

see more pics in the photo gallery