In September 2011, Wendy Gill was driving through London when, on her car radio, she heard Caro Emerald’s single “A Night Like This” on BBC Radio 2. She was immediately struck by the potential of the song as a musical theatre number, and she set about researching Caro Emerald, her writers and publishers, and acquiring a copy of Caro’s first album “Deleted Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor”.
Before long Wendy had taken every track from the album and used them to weave the story of a City of London playboy called Rick (the eponymous “That Man”) and a young immigrant singer called Rosa.
Wendy attended Caro Emerald’s live concert at the Roundhouse in London in 2012 where she approached Caro’s songwriter and manager David Schreurs, telling him about her idea of writing a musical using his songs. David was intrigued and gave Wendy the go-ahead to pursue her idea. The first draft of the musical, named THAT MAN after what was then one of Caro’s biggest hits, was selected in 2013 as the first musical to be given a rehearsed reading at London’s renowned Player-Playwrights workshop.