About us
The musical duo behind BramwellBrand Productions, Jane Bramwell and Michael Brand “bring a lot of variety to their memorable songs” (The Scotsman). Their interest sparks in creating musicals around historical figures including ‘Turing’ which saw Edinburgh Fringe success, titled as ‘Guilty of Love’ in 2023 and most recently ‘Wallis’, the story of Wallis Simpson, a woman swept away by circumstance, and the King who gave up his crown for her. The Edinburgh Fringe 2024 production of ‘Wallis’ saw countless 4* & 5* reviews, topped off by winning The Best Musical in The Edinburgh Fringe Derek Awards and a sold out show at The Other Palace.​
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Find out more about their musicals here
Although I studied music at Oxford I spent more time working on shows than attending lectures. But I did not write an original song until I was 20 when Mel Smith asked me to write four songs for his production of ‘The Entertainer’. For the first time I watched as an audience listened to my songs.
Reggie Oliver, a friend and writer, then asked me to collaborate on a musical based on Max Beerbohm’s ‘Zuleika.’ It ran at Oxford Playhouse to full houses. They loved it. I was hooked.
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My grandfather had given me his original edition of Robert Tressell’s influential Socialist novel ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists’. I found it moving and relevant. It still is. I started writing a brass band musical based on the noveI and when I met Ian Chippendale on a Stage One Producer’s training course we found that his grandmother had given him the same book. So we joined forces to write ‘In the Red’ and produced an album (recently re-released) and a professional workshop, playing to live audiences.
By this time I realized that I was never going to stop writing musicals.
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Michael Brand
Composer
Jane Bramwell
Lyricist
I have always written plays and poems and in my teenage years I won two national poetry prizes. I find it easier to write shows about real people because their own words trigger the lyrics.
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‘Venus in Daytime’ in ‘Guilty of Love’ comes directly from Turing’s letters.
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‘A boy misses a girl tonight’ is exactly what Edward wrote to Wallis in one of his many letters to her.
Katie Bennett
Producer
Katie started her producing career in corporate short films, working alongside production companies such as 1721 Studio, Millstream Productions, Buzzword Creative as well as securing her own independent clients. Her focus has since turned to producing theatre projects including ‘The Priory Park Pantomime Experience’ (Commissioned by Chichester District Council), ‘Wallis’ A new musical from BramwellBrand Productions (Ed Fringe, The Other Palace Studio), ‘The Ministry of Time’, An Immersive Theatre Show (The Novium Museum).
Katie is also a Director of Chichester Fringe, Est in 2021.
When I met Jane she told me that she wrote poems. They are beautiful. When she wrote a poem called ‘Longer than it Takes to Say Goodbye’ I turned it into a song. She then wrote more poems around the same story– and they became a show.Jane is fascinated by Wallis Simpson and we started writing a musical based on her life. It took some years to develop ‘Wallis’ but in 2024 we produced it at Edinburgh Fringe. It won an award for Best Fringe Musical. We had put Wallis aside for a while to starting working on a show about Lewis Carroll – Charles Dodgson in real life. Jane has an encylopedic knowledge of his ‘Alice’ books so we decided to use this material and Dodgson’s life as the basis for ‘CLD- The Real Lewis Carroll’. Using the Alice texts enabled us to write quickly and after a tryout at Petworth Fringe we ran ‘CLD’ at Oxford for three weeks. International visitors to Oxford loved it – and we got great reviews. Writing and producing a musical are different sides of the same coin. Both roles are equally creative. Musicals do not really ‘exist’ until the complete show is on the stage and watched by a live audience. The development time for a musical therefore can be long and expensive - but necessary.
We are always seeking independent producers and for our next show ‘Guilty of Love,’ about Alan Turing, we were fortunate that after a tryout in Brighton and then a short tour, David Kettle, the director and also a producer took it to Edinburgh Fringe in 2023: we are very grateful. I was moved by the emotional response from sold-out houses which reinforced my belief that in a ‘online’ world, and one in which creativity is threatened by AI, the wonderful experience of musicals written by real people and performed by real actors cannot be replicated. We are continuing to write and produce. Follow our Blog for more news.