WISHFUL THINKING MUSICALS

Simon Vaughan

Simon Vaughan (born 13 January 1970) is a British film and television producer and executive producer. Vaughan began his career as a child actor after being cast as Freddie Mainwaring in the BBC series Grange Hill.  

In 2009 Vaughan founded Lookout Point, a London-based drama production company with his wife Justine Vaughan. At Lookout Point Vaughan acted as CEO (and later Chairman and Joint CEO) before stepping down in January 2019, following the sale of Lookout Point to theBBC.  

In 2019 Vaughan launched The Media Investment Company with BBC Studios alum Helen Jackson. In June 2021, the company re-launched as The Story Collective announcing a new partnership with LA based Endeavor Content.

Vaughan was born in Kingston-Upon-Thames. He attended Danes Hill school in Surrey andItalia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts. Vaughan began his professional acting career in 1981 (aged 11) as Macduff’s son in Macbeth at the Thorndike Theatre.  

He later played Peter in the stage adaptation of The Railway Children at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield in 1984.  

He also appeared as Freddie Mainwaring in the BBC’s long running series Grange Hill between 1987-1988

In 1991, Vaughan joined Pickwick Home Video (part of the Carlton Television Group) which acquired and sold the rights to Beatrix Potter’s The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends (1993). In 1993, Vaughan joined BMG Entertainment where he commissioned Peter and the Wolf for the ABC Network, which won and Emmy Award for Best Children’s Programmed in 1995, and The Wind in The Willows collection for the Disney Channel and Channel 4.  

After leaving BMG Vaughan executive produced the television programmes Watership Down for ITV, Disney and ProSieben (1999). Vaughan later delivered the television film A Bear Named Winnie (2004) starring Michael Fassbender in his first lead role. In 2005 Vaughan co-founded Alchemy Television where he executive produced Emmy Award nominated television film Coco Chanel (2008) starring Shirley MacLaine, and Ben Hur (2010) for ABC Network. Alchemy also invested in and distributed The Company (2007), Ridley Scott’s CIA origin story for TNT & BBC and 5 seasons of procedural crime series Flashpoint for CBS.

In 2009 Vaughan launched production company Lookout Point, which was fully acquired by the BBC Group in 2018. At Lookout Point Vaughan executive produced the television programmes: Titanic (2012) written by Julian Fellowes for ITV and ABC Network, Parade’s End (2012) for the BBC and HBO, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, which won the BAFTA for best mini-series in 2013 and Ripper Street (2012-2016), which ran on the BBC for five seasons. In 2016 Vaughan executive produced War and Peace (2016) for the BBC which was adapted by Andrew Davies and won a BAFTA for Production Design in 2017, and The Collection (2016) which was created by Oliver Goldstick and was Amazon’s first European original commission.  

Lookout Point have also produced: Les Misérables (2018) for the BBC written by Andrew Davies and starring Olivia Colman, Dominic West and David Oyelowo as well as Mike Barlett’s Press for BBC One and PBS (2018); and Sally Wainwright’s series Gentleman Jack for the BBC and HBO, starring Suranne Jones who won a Lead Actress BAFTA for her role in 2020.  

In 2017 Vaughan co-wrote and executive produced the feature film Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) for Fox Searchlight starring Margot Robbie and Domhnall Gleeson.

Ricky Simmonds

Ricky Simmonds (born 26 August 1967) is a British songwriter, composer, and electronic music recording artist. Simmonds began his career as a teen actor, playing Ant Jones in the BBC series Grange Hill.

He achieved popularity in the late 90s and early 2000s as one half of the trance music act The Space Brothers charting in the UK top 40 with thirteen singles and featuring on compilations with sales in excess of 14 million albums.

In the late 2010s, Simmonds launched Wishful Thinking Musicals with former Grange Hillco-star, Simon Vaughan, writing and developing a slate of original musicals.

Simmonds was born on 26 August 1967 at the Royal Free Hospital in London. He attended St Paul’s Primary School in Primrose Hill and then JFS Comprehensive School in Camden Town.

At the age of seven, he made his stage debut in a Central School of Speech And Dramaproduction of The Duchess of Malfi at the Embassy Theatre in Swiss Cottage.

In the early 1980s Simmonds was recruited as a child model for the mail-order catalogue business, Kays Catalogue. The shoot took place in the South Of France, and Simmonds continued modelling on various advertising and catalogue campaigns during his early teens.

Simmonds began his professional acting career with the lead role in the 1984 British film Pop Priates, starring alongside Roger Daltrey as a young pop musician, Michael.

The following year, he appeared at Leatherhead’s Thorndike Theatre in a stage adaptation of the 1981 film On Golden Pong, playing the role of Billy Ray.

He went on to understudy the titular role in the 1985 stage musical adaptation of Sue Townsend’s novel The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre.

Six months later, Simmonds successfully auditioned for the long-running BBC series Grange Hill, appearing in its ninth and tenth series as Ant Jones.

Simmonds sang on the 1986 Grange Hill anti-drugs campaign record Just Say No.

After the record reached the top five in the UK singles charts, Simmonds was invited to take part in a BBC documentary, travelling with eight other cast members to the United States to meet First Lady – Nancy Reagan at The White House.

Between 1985 and 1987 Simmonds appeared in seven episodes of Secrets Out for the BBC.

In 1988, he played the titular role in Dick Whittington at the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage and the following year appeared in the BBC sitcom Joint Account Dick Whittington at the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage and the following year appeared in the BBC sitcom Joint Account with Hannah Gordon and Peter Egan.

In his early twenties, Simmonds left acting to pursue a career in music, first joining the rock band Protocol, formed by elder brother Danny Simmonds with bassist Paul Freud. They released a single There’s No Holding Back which Simmonds co-wrote with Red Box producer David Motion. The band were later joined by guitarist Olivier Behzadi and Keyboardist Steve Jones.

Protocol played several gigs across the UK in the late 80s and the group ultimately disbanded in the early 90s.

Simmonds and Jones continued their creative partnership, forming the dance-rock band The Good Strawberries in 1992, signing a record deal with M&G Records. The band played over thirty dates on the first UK tour from dance superclub Ministry of Sound in 1994, supporting headline act Paul Oakenfold.

Both internal issues and disagreements with the band’s record company saw the group break up in 1995.

In 1995, Simmonds and Jones further collaborated on the Ultrahigh dance music project, later producing under a variety of pseudonyms such as Chakra, Lustral, Ascension, Essence, Ultrahigh, Lamai and The Realm).
They are most recognised for their project The Space Brothers, the name under which they still tour and release the majority of their music.

The Space Brothers’ debut production “Stay with Me” (released as Ultrahigh) garnered club interest and reached number 36 on the UK Singles Chart in December 1995. Whereas “Stay with Me” epitomised the hardbag sound, their next release “I Am” (as Chakra) was to showcase a darker, ethereal and more progressive trance based sound. “I Am” caught the ears of Sasha and John Digweed (the latter of whom submitted a remix of the track alongside Nick Muir their Bedrock guise). “I Am” peaked at number 24 on the UK Singles Chart in January 1997 [16].

During this period, Simmonds and Jones signed an exclusive worldwide publishing deal with Chrysalis Music later to become BMG/Chrysalis Music.

Despite having signed to Paul Oakenfold’s Pefecto imprint for the release of “Someone” – Ascension and WEA for the release of their Chakra material, the Space Brothers elected to make Manifesto Records their home, and their first Space Brothers single “Shine”, appeared into the UK chart having been Pete Tong’s ‘essential new tune’.

The second Space Brothers release was “Forgiven (I Feel Your Love)” in November 1997. It spent a total of seven weeks in the UK chart over the course of the festive period that year. 1998 witnessed the temporary abandonment of the Space Brothers moniker, and Simmonds and Jones instead elected to focus on the output of their other sobriquets Essence, Lustral and Force Majeure. The following year saw the release of “Legacy (Show Me Love)” in July 1999. Featuring the vocals of Kate Cameron as well as a remix by Matt Darey, it reached number 31 on the UK chart in July 1999 [18]. Also in 1999, they remixed and wrote new verses and choruses for Alena’s “Turn It Around” which reached the top 15 in the UK singles chart.

Shortly after the release of “Legacy (Show Me Love)” the Space Brothers unveiled their debut album Shine. To complement the album a remix disc was included in the package featuring reworked Space Brothers tracks (mostly unreleased) mixed by Paul Oakenfold. The second single from the album was “Heaven Will Come”, which was released in October 1999 featuring mixes by Lange and Olmec Heads. Following the commercial success of “Legacy (Show Me Love)” and “Heaven Will Come”, coupled with their album “Shine”, the Space Brothers decided to take a hiatus, returning only briefly in 2001 with the Push remixed “Everywhere I Go”.

The Space Brothers sobriquet was largely inactive for a period of time; however, Simmonds and Jones continued to release tracks under guises such as Ascension, The Realm, Chakra, Quadraphonic and Lamai, with their Oxygen project scoring a top 30 UK hit in 2002 with“Am I On Your Mind?”. In late 2002, a new Space Brothers track “One More Chance” appeared as a 12″ and digital download release. Subsequent promos that circulated featured remixes of “Everywhere I Go” and “Forgiven” (as remixed by Ian Knowles and DJ Demand) on the Liverpool based 3 Beat Records subsidiary label, Boss Records.

Most Space Brothers tracks feature the vocals of Kate Cameron, aside from “Shine” and “Forgiven (I Feel Your Love)” (Joanna Law) and “Everywhere I Go” (Talya).

2004 saw Simmonds and Jones launching the online download music store, www.audiojelly.com, where all their productions and side projects were available, along with a broad range of other dance artists and releases. 2007 saw the duo mainly active in the guise of Lustral with the release of the download album Deepest, Darkest Secrets and the double remix CD Deeper, Darker Secrets.

Under the name Chakra, the duo produced trance music, notably working with Kate Cameron. They also collaborated under the Chakra name with the German trance music DJ Markus Schulz, notably on his album, Progression.

In 1997, the duo launched their Lustral project, under which they released the single “Everytime” on the Hooj Choons label. Featuring the vocals of Tracy Ackerman, “Everytime” proved to be a club hit due to the balearic trance interpretation by Nalin & Kane, who earlier in the year had enjoyed crossover success with “Beachball”.

“Everytime” failed to succeed commercially, peaking at No. 60 on the UK Singles Chart in November 1997, but reaching number two for two weeks on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart the following month. Some months later, Lustral released “Solace”, again featuring Tracy Ackerman. “Solace” was remixed by Hooj Choons labelmate Medway, who released his remix as his own track on the 1999 EP The Elements EP. In November 1999, “Everytime” was reissued, this time achieving greater chart success. Featuring remixes fromA Man Called Adam, Timo Maas, Mike Koglin and Way Out West to complement the 1997 original, “Everytime” peaked at No. 30 in the UK.

Shortly before the collapse of Hooj Choons, Lustral released “Broken” on the Hoojsubsidiary Lost Language. “Broken” featured mixes from Way Out West, and the release included a reworking of “Everytime” by Yunus. Lustral remained largely dormant until the issue of the remixed “Solace” on Lost Language in May 2005, featuring mixes from Vorontsov and Chocolate Uncle. Further promos included a new track, “The Price We Pay for Love”, featuring remixes from Serge Devant and Aidan Lavelle.

In 2008, Lustral released their Interpretations album, followed by a double album in 2009, Lustral Presents Trance Classics. The latter was a collection of the original version of the tracks on the first CD, and ambient versions of the Interpretations album on the second. In December 2010, the track “I Feel You” was released and included a remix by John O’Callaghan.

In 2013, Lustral released their next album Empathy on Armada Music, and a collaboration – On My Own with DT8 Project on Mondo Records was released in 2020.

Since 2007, The Space Brothers have been signed for the majority of their new releases and catalogue remixes to Armada Music.

In 2022, they released the first album of their anniversary project – The Space Brothers 25 Years Vol. 1.