Alex Green and Cilla Black in 1970 [Joost Evers / Anefo]

Alex Green is a singer, performer, actor and activist. In Camden Town, he has been the force behind the Black Cap campaign, which has won a nine-year battle to save London’s oldest gay and cabaret bar, based in Camden High Street. A regular performer in clubs and onstage, Alex also writes: and it is a new play that has just enjoyed a stellar run at the Edinburgh Fringe that he brings to London next week.

The show has a serious message contained within, but while Alex has spent a lifetime working for equality, his entertainer side has used Cilla Black as a hook.

A lifelong love of the Liverpudlian performer has been an influence on him as he has forged his career – and Cilla’s songs helped him as a youngster as he was discovering who he was.

“It goes back to me as a tiny child,” he says. “My family say I could sing before I could talk.”

The youngest of 10 children, Alex had plenty of barometers of good taste to be inspired by in the golden era of 1960s British pop.

“I remember clearly sitting outside my sister Rowena’s bedroom and she’d play Dusty Springfield and other great female vocalists,” he remembers. “Rowena was a big pop fan – she looked like a young Barbara Windsor – and was obsessed with Cilla. It just filtered through to me – I too became obsessed with female singers from that period.”

Cilla’s career began in earnest in 1963. She had been the cloakroom attendant at the famous Cavern Club, where The Beatles forged their act, and was taken on by the Fab Four’s manager Brian Epstein. She hit number one twice in 1964 with Anyone Who Had a Heart – which Alex’s show takes its name from – and You’re My World. She was one of the world’s biggest sellers through the 60s and later forged a career as a TV presenter, her shows Surprise Surprise and Blind Date staple Saturday viewing.

“There was something about how she tackled things like loneliness and heartbreak. Her impact is sometimes overlooked –  she had the biggest selling single in the UK ever before Adele came along,” says Alex.

He could not help but be influenced on stage by her work. “It struck me when I started singing, I’d always do Cilla. She’d always be there in my show. It is the quality of her performance – her technique, her tone, her expression.”

Her class as both a singer and presenter are two elements that as a cabaret performer Alex recognises. “That idea of being open and talking to the audience – she was so funny and natural, but for me it was always about her songs. She became a total British institution. She had the talent, the stamina.”

The play came about after Alex performed at the renowned Bedford Arms in Brighton, a celebrated cabaret venue. “I was doing some stand-up with songs and stories,” he says. “I’d tell the story of my sister Rowena and how I got into performance with a medley of Cilla songs.

“Afterwards, a bloke introduced himself and offered to buy me a drink to say thanks for the show. He was really quite emotional. He said: ‘Thank you so much for singing those songs for me and my generation. She was like a power for good among those for us living an illegal life. As we were not able to articulate our love, she did it for us’.

“He said to me: ‘If anyone had a heart, they would not have made our love illegal.’ That stuck with me – anyone who had a heart would not make love illegal.”

It set him up to write a story for Kenny and his generation.

Alex Green: ‘I wanted to find the voices of those gay men. I wanted to look at what happened if you were a teenager and fell in love between 1957 and 1967,’

Part of his motivation was to reset misunderstandings about a generation.

“With the Black Cap campaign, we have celebrated things like Stonewall and Pride, and shouting out about activism,” he says. “But I realised somehow, gay men of that generation still sometimes feel ashamed and today we don’t talk about what they went through. Somehow, even though they were brave enough to fight that battle, that is not always acknowledged.

“It incenses me. I have heard from contemporary activists saying, for example, that when it was illegal gay men did not fight back or were somehow weak. This is something I have had to live with.”

Alex set off to craft a powerful piece that would illustrate these issues. “I wanted to find the voices of those gay men. I wanted to look at what happened if you were a teenager and fell in love between 1957 and 1967,” he adds.

That decade saw the Wolfenden Report in 1957 recommend a change in the law – after a battle led by MP Leo Abse in the Commons to make it reality, it finally happened in 1967.

Alex uses a lead character called Alfie, a 17-year-old who is arrested and goes on to show the impact, and highlights how the law seriously restricted people’s lives.

“Each act was an act of defiance – defiance by having a relationship with another man,” he says. “It was awful. Speaking in a certain way, dressing in a certain way, flirting with someone – all could ruin your life.”

After a 10-show run in Edinburgh, Alex is appearing at the Phoenix Arts Club in September.

“I wanted to tell of how two teenagers met and how vulnerable they were,” he adds. “I wanted to show young, vibrant people enjoying their lives in the midst of a difficult situation, where they could basically get arrested for having a love affair.”

Cilla’s songs bring joy, and the play, while a drama dealing with a desperately sad topic, is also a celebration.

“Ultimately, it is about saying how brave these people were,” he says. “The vilification they faced – it is a brave act to be gay today, but then…each day was a courageous battle.
“Falling in love was an act of defiance.”

• Anyone Who Had A Heart is at the Phoenix Arts Club, One Phoenix Street, WC2H 8BU on Friday, September 13 at 6pm. See https://phoenixartsclub.com/events/anyone-who-had-a-heart/