From the streets of Consett to the bright lights of the west end is quite a journey in anyone's terms, but that is the career of Old Blaydonian KEITH STRACHAN, who attended BGS from 1955 to 1962.

He left the Grammar School in 1962, going on to Queen Elizabeth College, London University to read science and maths. During his time at University he became part of an 8 member jazz/rock band called Swegas, with whom he went on tour across Europe for a number of months, while undertaking his day job as a maths teacher.

Having been advised that some of his compositions would work well in musicals, In 1975 he took his first steps in musical theatre in small shows in Richmond and Greenwich, while continuing his teaching career. Despite an initial lack of success in translating the smaller shows to the West End, Keith was offered a life changing opportunity to become musical director on the production of Elvis The Musical. As Keith told 'The Stage', "“Considering both my previous shows had failed, I couldn’t believe my luck, MD-ing a potential hit show in the West End and working with the great Jack Good. At last I was starting to earn a decent living from doing what I loved best, helping to create musicals.”

The success of this venture enabled him to work in television on a tribute to the "Oh Boy!" TV show of the 1950's, following which success he formed a group - "Wall Street Crash" - seen in the video above - and worked with them through to 1984, taking in three royal variety performances.

Keith went on to continue working in television as a musical director and composer for a number of TV classics including the Morecambe and Wise show, Spitting Image, New Faces and many more.

In 1988 Cliff Richard took an adaptation of one of Keith's works from 'The Little Match Girl' to eight weeks at number one, including the coveted Christmas Number one, with Mistletoe and Wine, a song which continues to be frequently heard around the festive season on an annual basis. Keith won the Ivor Novello songwriting award for the piece, seen below.

Keith continued to combine working in musical theatre, working with Bill Kenwright among others, with composing work for television. His theatre work has included a number of tribute musicals and pieces of work celebrating other musical eras and genres. In these shows he has taken much more of a directorial role.

His TV composing work continued and led to international recognition with the development with his son Matthew of the theme tune for the gameshow 'Who wants to be a millionaire' which has been used in the countless international versions of the show. They won a ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) award three times from 1999 for their work on the music.

Keith continues his work, with new touring and west end shows on a regular basis. His work is amongst the most identifiable on TV and his productions regularly sell out around the UK. His latest work is Sweet Soul Music which is currently touring.