Selected Recordings →
LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST / MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (2026–)
THE ELMER ADVENTURE (2024–)
KATHY & STELLA SOLVE A MURDER! (2022–)
A SUPER HAPPY STORY (ABOUT FEELING SUPER SAD) (2016–)
GINGERLINE (2013–)
FRISKY & MANNISH (2008–)
LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST / MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
2026–
These elegant al fresco productions, adapted by Orange Tree Theatre’s Tom Littler for Guildford Shakespeare Company to perform in repertory, conjoined the characters and storylines of both plays into one continuous narrative. At the heart of this reworking was the bandying romance of Lord Benedick Berowne and Lady Beatrice Rosaline, which began during a carefree summer retreat in 1939 and continued six years later upon their return from active war service.
This concept lent itself to two distinct atmospheres, as the experience of war transformed the lovers’ arcadian innocence in the first play into flint-edged cynicism for the second, and the soundscape reflected that shift. ‘Sigh No More’ from Much Ado was moved forward into Love’s Labour’s Lost, crooned by the page Moth to his master Don Adriano de Armado as a sentimental ballad. ‘The Muscovites’ Dance’ and ‘Stealing Clothes by the River’, both part of the flirtatious games, were breezy summery japes, before ‘The Cuckoo & The Owl’ marked the wistful end of their holiday as a bomber flew overhead. Much Ado contained fewer songs, and what music remained was markedly cooler and spikier through the static of the wireless, until deeper emotion poured forth at the tomb of maligned Hero.
Music, arrangement & vocal guide by MFJ. Lyrics by William Shakespeare. Mixing & mastering by Matt Eaton.
THE ELMER ADVENTURE
2024–
Tall Stories’ adaptation of the Elmer books is set deep in the jungle where three adventurers, hoping for a sighting of the famous elephant, are taking turns sharing colourful tales whilst they wait. It’s a beautifully simple framework in the oral tradition. Admittedly they get carried away with their storytelling, somehow arriving at an eclectic ten-part motif-laden mini-operetta in the middle, but the basic premise of the show is a bunch of singalongs around the campfire, accompanied by the strum of an acoustic guitar.
I’ve never been a guitarist, and my chord progressions don’t always lend themselves naturally to that instrument (as I found in rehearsal), but I enjoyed this project all the more for that fact. I think a guitar-playing songwriter might have naturally fallen into more conventional patterns, whereas I did these ditties at the keyboard, unintentionally hitting upon some rather quirky crunches and corner-turns.
Two of the songs were recorded during the 2025 UK Tour. The 11 o’clock number—although it’s a children’s show, so that’s 11am of course—is ‘The Elephant Parade’, which I conceived as something of a Caribbean carnival crossed with Tarzan’s ‘Trashing the Camp’ (the most underrated and fun Disney musical sequence there is). And there’s the ‘E-L-M-E-R’ song, a funny hybrid of a hymn, march and spelling test that the adventurers remember from their primary school days.
Promotional tracks recorded at Livingston Studios, 2025. Music & lyrics by MFJ. Performed by Amelia Gabriel, Frankie Turton & Rob Astillo. Engineered and mixed by James Pickering.
KATHY & STELLA SOLVE A MURDER!
2022–
The Kathy & Stella song used most frequently in promotional clips is the heroines’ “indomitably perky” podcast jingle. This choice absolutely makes sense from a marketing viewpoint – it’s a literal theme tune – but when you see the show, you realise how unique it is within the full score, how un-Kathy & Stella the chirpy cartoonish sound of it is. These two women were once emos. They used to write supernatural fan fiction. They love gritty procedural drama serials. As broadly theatrical as their surroundings may be, they’re in fact a serious freak and geek. It’s just that their podcast theme is by definition a performative choice they’ve made in the hope of attracting more listeners.
My perception of Kathy & Stella’s sound, in the centre of the perky musical comedy they inhabit, is not mainstream or modern. Even allowing for the fact that they were “pushing thirty” in 2022, and therefore forming their tastes in the early 2010s, I don’t see them paying much attention to Beyoncé or One Direction. I suspect that precocious, detail-oriented Kathy might have found some psychedelic funk, jazz and soul in her parents’ vinyls and thrilled to the soaring frenetic energy, whereas earthier, self-indulgent Stella embodied more of a contradiction, enjoying pumping hard rock and the balladry of Céline Dion in equal measure. Throw all of that into a pot with the DVD box set of Cagney & Lacey and, if I’m the one cooking, you get a song that belongs to the duo of Kathy & Stella…
We only got the chance to record four songs from the show, grabbing an afternoon onstage with the original cast before our first 2023 UK Tour preview. They are: the show’s first proper number, the love duet (between the two leads, of course, not some filler romantic interest), the story-moving sequence that kicks off the investigation, and the lush aria that reveals the growing gulf between the pair.
EP recorded at ArtsEd, 2023. Music by MFJ. Lyrics by Jon Brittain & MFJ. Performed by Bronté Barbé (Kathy), Rebekah Hinds (Stella), Jodie Jacobs (Felicia+), TJ Lloyd (Justin+), Imelda Warren-Green (Erica+), Chelsea Hall, Jacob Kohli & Sarah Pearson. Musicians: MFJ (Keys 1/MD), Caitlin Morgan (Keys 2/AMD), Laura Browne (Guitar) & Philip Williams (Drums). Engineered and mixed by Ben Robbins.
A SUPER HAPPY STORY (ABOUT FEELING SUPER SAD)
2016–
Sally McKenzie, the narrator and autobiographer of the show, loves music. She talks about writing down lyrics and making mix CDs: “Indie, pop, rock, folk, even a bit of classical if I’m in the mood...” The first chapter of the play takes place at one of her favourite band’s gigs. In the second, searching for a misplaced album triggers a meltdown. When the darkest chapter comes, a particular song playing at just the right moment essentially saves her life. Music could not be more intrinsic to the story, and therefore finding the right style was key.
Crucially, though, Sally harbours no ambition to be a professional musician herself. She never mentions wanting to play an instrument or form her own band. That’s actually one of the things I love about her – at her core, she’s a hungry consumer, a devoted audience member, a supportive fan. She loves other people’s music. And although the play is presented as Sally’s own show—one she has written, produced, staged, and roped friends into performing with her—she is absolutely not hoping to launch a legitimate music career. Her songs are storytelling tools, for emphasis, or lightness, or inarticulable feelings, or even self-admitted sugar-coating, as she sees fit.
When I came to write the music, I made a conscious decision to let the songs be simple, the plausible creations of a 26-year-old solar farm project manager. Piecemeal, pastiche, not smoothly integrated, but very pure of intention, and totally without vanity. One particular moment in the script really jumped out at me: Sally’s friend Toby turning up for a frozen-pizza-and-video-game night. I found the idea of 8-bit loops and Casio chords interesting not only due to its accessibility for the amateur central character, but also as the likely soundtrack to many of the teenage days she recreates for us during the play. That bedrock can still be heard in some of the rhythmic and harmonic choices I had her make.
Demo tracks recorded at Cowshed Studios, 2018. Music by MFJ. Lyrics by Jon Brittain & MFJ. Performed by the original cast: Madeleine MacMahon (Sally), Sophie Clay (Tash+) & Ed Yelland (Toby+), with MFJ (piano). Engineered and mixed by James Johnston.
GINGERLINE
2013–
I worked on three separate projects with gastronomic theatre company Gingerline, a “major cultural force” (Time Out) known for curating immersive dining experiences in secret East London locations.
The first was Planet Gingerline, a starship voyage which we virtual-hosted in character as Frisky & Mannish. Next was Chambers of Flavour, a multi-dimensional sensory vortex featuring an end-of-the-world song that I wrote for a drag queen stewardess to lip-sync during a simulated plane crash. (I heard a diner on the way out saying that we could win Eurovision with it...) The most demanding of the projects was Madame Gingerline, a murder mystery opera set in an underground lair, with four grand musical sequences between courses, pastiching and intertwining famous arias rewritten to suit a ludicrous new story.
Event concepts and storylines created by Suz Mountfort & Kerry Adamson for Gingerline. Audio engineered and mixed by James Pickering.
Chambers of Flavour recorded at RedOne, 2015. Music, arrangement & piano by MFJ. Lyrics by Suz Mountfort with MFJ. Performed by Bethany Barber.
Madame Gingerline recorded at Wendyhouse Studios, 2016. Lyrics, adaptation, arrangements, piano & clarinet by MFJ. Music adapted from Georges Bizet (‘L’amour est un oiseau rebelle’, Carmen), Leo Delibes (‘Flower Duet’, Lakmé), Gaetano Donizetti (‘Il dolce suono’, Lucia di Lammermoor), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (‘Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen’, Die Zauberflöte), Giacomo Puccini (‘O mio babbino caro’, Gianni Schicchi) & Giuseppe Verdi (‘Libiamo ne' lieti calici’, La Traviata). Performed by KB (Madame), Alex Otterburn (Al Dente), Jenny Stafford (Lucia) & Dominic J. Walsh (Edgardo). Musicians: Sam Ewens (Trumpet), Zami Jalil (Viola), Anya Ovsyanikova (Violin), Barnaby Philpott (Trombone), Will Robertson (Cello).
FRISKY & MANNISH
2008–
Settle in, girls, it’s story time…
In 2009, our Fringe début hour opened to the kind of crowds and raves you dream of. United Agents signed us. International producers came a-knocking. A journalist cornered us and said “Well, of course you’re a shoo-in for Best Newcomer” (in a tone implying they didn’t personally agree, but that such a choice was, like Coldplay and the Nazis, inevitable.) The judges came to watch several times. Our programmers started to get excited. We went to bed the night before the shortlist announcement like it was Christmas Eve. But Santa did not come overnight. It transpired that our shoes were decidedly not in. They’d gone with five straight white men of course, including Jack Whitehall and Kevin Bridges. We were disappointed for a morning, but then Laura caught swine flu and some perspective was thankfully regained.
Now why is this story relevant? I don’t know. I just wanted everyone to remember that we had an extremely well-received first show. The end. Bye.
No, no! It is relevant, because someone later told us that our nomination was hotly debated, but the panel had concluded that our material was not sufficiently “original” to qualify. In one way this was comforting, because you can imagine how embarrassingly deluded we felt to have believed it might happen. But it was also the first of several such douses of cold water when it came to our act. No matter how radically we reimagined pop hits, often beyond recognition, some just saw it as “one song to the tune of another” and didn’t think of us as actual writers, and it was hard to swallow that when we knew that we absolutely had original creative work in there.
Of course now it’s all water under the bridge, judges, which is why I tell this story in a completely casual and non-bitter way, and you can open your mail without worrying… No but seriously, it all worked out fine – I think we may have been spared an unexpected backlash? Anyway, to hear all of our most popular and super-unoriginal F&M works, please visit F&M’s channel. Here I only include the viral song we wrote ourselves from the ground up, ‘Too Cabaret’, and our predominantly original festive track ‘Perfect Christmas Single’, which admittedly quotes a few existing hooks but in a song bed of our own making.
Too Cabaret, 2012. Music, lyrics, arrangement & performance by MFJ. Additional lyrics & performance by Laura Corcoran. Additional arrangement, engineering & mixing by Baz Hilton. Dialogue by Sarah-Louise Young, Joanna Woodward & Victoria Futterweit.
Perfect Christmas Single, 2012. Music, lyrics & arrangement by MFJ & Laura Corcoran. Keys by MFJ. Performed by MFJ, Laura Corcoran, Scott Mills, Chris Stark & Beccy Huxtable. Engineered & mixed by Marc Vickers for Wisebuddah. Additional performance & engineering by Baz Hilton.
