Peter James had an impish sense of humour. In 1975 the Crucible in Sheffield mounted what he called a Horror Christmas, with me in the title role of The Jack the Ripper Show in the Studio theatre, and Dracula in the main house. A Guardian review focused on how my character could not bring himself to do the deed at the crucial moment, and called me a disastrous Ripper.
I took this to refer to my performance, and when Peter captioned an enormous picture of me in the foyer “Tony Rowlands is a disastrous Ripper”, I got dramatically shirty. But Peter put his arm round me, laughed uproariously and reassured me that it was great for business.
