Christopher Wortley
Chris is a full-time songwriter. As well as a career writing pop songs for Korean boy-bands, Chris writes for musical theatre, cabaret and revue – where he hopes to make people laugh and cry. (He has definitely achieved the former. The latter is harder - but one singer at least claims to have wept in rehearsals over Chris’ lyrics) There is, Chris feels, something almost magical about the successful marriage of words and music – something quite distinct from music alone, poetry or prose.
He usually writes both music and words but he also enjoys collaborating with lyricists and composers on songs and shows, producing original material to order.
Major projects
- Act your Age - A full-length musical farce – book written with assistance from TV writer, Brian Clemens. There have now been over twenty productions around the country and overseas – many with sell-out performances. The show is published by Stagescripts
- With BAFTA-award winning writer, Roy Apps, Chris has written The Fang Gang, based on Roy’s popular series of books. The title song featured on Radio4’s Go4It. The show is published by Stagescripts
- Chris worked as a songwriter on the Sing-Up programme, aimed at primary schools. As part of this work, The Jungle Song is published through Faber Music on the Sing-Up Song Bank www.singup.org.
More Generally
Chris writes cabaret/revue songs and a number of these have found their way into shows in London - including at RADA and at the Leicester Square Theatre - and in regional shows including Luton, Romsey and The New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth. Siân Phillips regularly includes his song Making Faces in her one-woman shows – one of which was televised. His songbook is published by www.dotdismus.com as part of their ‘Writers of Note’ series.
Chris has also worked on regular commissions for bespoke songs including a series of comic mini-operas for the touring theatre group Fingask Follies (published by Stagescripts) as well as comic songs for corporate events such as for Rolls Royce plc where songs replace after-dinner speaking.
Chris wrote the book/music/lyrics for OFSTED the Musical attracting praise from The Times - and his musical showcase revue Thwarted! at the King’s Head Theatre, Islington, played to a full house. On the strength of the show, Kit and the Widow aired two of the songs on their Radio 3 cabaret programme.
Pop Songs
In the world of pop songs, Chris has over 2 million physical sales (CDs and DVDs). These include multi-platinum cuts in Japan and Korea with artists such as TVXQ (Fated, Gold Dust & Reboot), Super Junior - D&E (Symphony), Arashi (Wonderful), Taeyeon (Shhhh), Stray Kids (Wow) and Kana Nishino (Best Friends Forever). A career-high for Chris was sitting in Tokyo Dome, surrounded by 55,000 screaming TVXQ fans, all singing along to his song, Reboot !
Chris is signed to DWB Music Ltd (greigdwb@me.com) and writes with colleagues in the UK, Europe and Asia, mostly as a top-liner, with particular emphasis on lyrics.
