Author: Cull and Co. Ltd

World Rights to Robert Sellers’ new book have gone to Applause Books.

This book focuses on the big ‘7,’ mega productions of the 80s, British musicals that were larger than life, colourful and spectacular, shows that certainly paved the way for the ‘event’ musicals of recent years such as The Lion King and Wicked.

Evita ran for seven years in the West End and four years on Broadway and ushered in an era when for over a decade Britain dominated musical theatre all over the world with blockbusting productions that were international hits, notably Cats, Starlight Express, Les Misérables, Phantom of The Opera, Chess and Miss Saigon.

For the very first time, many of the artists will celebrate and tell this extraordinary period in British musical history, both behind and in front of the curtain. And many of the stories of backstage dramas, production nightmares, and financial woes have never been told before.

Contributors include Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice, Cameron Mackintosh, Michael Crawford, Elaine Paige, Wayne Sleep, David Essex, Michael Ball, Abba’s Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus, Sarah Brightman, Barbara Dickson, Trevor Nunn & Patti LuPone.

Robert Sellers is the author of the best-selling ‘Hellraisers: The Life and Inebriated Times of Burton, Harris, O’Toole and Reed,’ and the authorised biographies of Peter O’Toole, Oliver Reed, Ernie Wise, and Kenny Everett. He has written histories of Ealing Studios and the George Harrison/Monty Python film company HandMade Films. He also ghost-wrote the autobiographies of Martin Edwards, ex-chairman of Manchester United, and Vic Armstrong, the world’s most prolific stuntman.

The book will publish late 2022.

Estonian language rights have been snapped up by AS Aripaev, based in Tallinn, which is owned by the Swedish family-owned media group Bonnier, brokered by Andrew Nurnberg Baltic.

The book is out now in the UK and will be published in the USA in May.

The Daily Mail recently ran a feature for Femail. Starting with Samson and Delilah, Schlesinger retells famous and lesser-known cases of suspected and confirmed honey trap operations, including that of the most famous femme fatale in history: Mata Hari.

Others include Maria Butina, Anna Chapman and ‘Romeo Spies’ such as Roald Dahl, and the Estonian Vladimir Kivi was betrayed by the double agent Kopatsky and handed over to the Soviets following a night of drinking.

World Rights have been sold to SPCK for Parish priest in West London Fr. Mark Vickers’s GOD IN NUMBER 10, a study of the faith of the 20th-century British Prime Ministers, addressing the role of religion in the political classes of the period, the reasons for the declining influence of faith in the public forum, and the relationship between church and state.

Surprising instances are revealed, including Balfour and MacDonald’s recourse to spiritualism; Baldwin’s mystical experiences, and Churchill’s involvement with astrology. The work rectifies the lacuna of most political biographies relating to an important—sometimes the most important—aspect of the individual’s life. 

“Faith defined the reigns of many of our kings and queens. The faith of the Prime Ministers, however, has been largely overlooked by historians. This carefully researched and well-written study reveals the religious faith of our Prime Ministers, or lack of it, in vivid colours. Prepare to be shocked and surprised as the author lays bare their souls.”  –– Sir Anthony Seldon.

Having studied for the priesthood at the English College in Rome, Mark was ordained for the Diocese of Westminster in 2003. He is currently a parish priest in West London. He has previously published two biographies and is the author of Reunion Revisited: 1930s Ecumenism Exposed (Gracewing, 2017).

With the assistance of John Major and others, the book will be published in the latter half of 2022.

SPCK Publishing won ​IPG Specialist Consumer Publisher of the Year 2017, 2018, 2019, and the CRT Awards Publisher of the Year & Book of the Year 2018, 2019, 2021.

Former Home Office employee Neil Robinson’s spy thriller THE OTHER SIDE OF TRUST has gone to Burning Chair Publishers for World English Rights.

When the three leaders of an opposition group to Iran’s Islamic regime are all murdered within 48 hours of each other in Cambridge, Hamburg, and New York, an MI6 agent is sent to Tehran but finds his instincts rebelling against the evidence in the deadliest mission of his life.

Robinson now works for Lord’s Cricket Ground where he has remained for the last 15 years currently as the MCC’s Head of Heritage & Collections, where, among other things, his job involves looking after the Ashes Urn.

He has written widely about cricket and sporting heritage for a variety of publications and in 2015 published Long Shot Summer, a book about one of the most humiliating years in English cricket history. His fiction writing covers very different ground. A lifelong lover of spy novels, he takes inspiration from thriller writers like Len Deighton and John Buchan and seeks to create novels with a sense of place and character.

Burning Chair recently published former spy John Fullerton’s successful spy novel series.