Full name: Timothy Miles Bindon Rice.
Sounds posh: Very. Dad was a major in the war and later sold planes for de Havilland; young Tim went to Lancing public school and the Sorbonne.
Age: He'll be 70 this year.
From here to eternity. Shush! Best not mention that.
Why? He wrote the lyrics for the West End show of that name which has just announced it will be closing after a painfully brief run.
From here to a week next Thursday? Quite. The show will close on 29 March, the same day as his old mucker Andrew Lloyd Webber's equally dismal failure, Stephen Ward, pulls down the shutters.
The end of an era? Rice reckons so. "The public don't seem interested in musicals with new material," he says. "They just want old songs repackaged." He doubts whether he will write another musical.
A grave loss to the artform. Probably best to leave the ironic commentary to me.
Do you want to recap the partnership's greatest hits? This column will also be closing early if I don't. After dabbling in the pop business, he joined with Lloyd Webber in the late 1960s and produced three blockbusters: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita. Then they split up.
Why? Lloyd Webber found a new lyricist, an up-and-comer called Thomas Stearns Eliot, with whom he produced Cats.
What happened to poor Tim? He made oodles of money writing lyrics for Disney blockbusters Aladdin and The Lion King.
So he won't be on his uppers in retirement? Unlikely. His fortune is estimated at £150m and he has a 33,000-acre estate in Scotland.
Likes: Cricket (he has his own team, the Heartaches); pop music (he edited the Guinness Book of Hit Singles); English life; Scottish landscapes.
Dislikes: Europe – it was recently revealed he had donated money to Ukip; the Tory party (he was a long-time supporter but now says they are "not interested in me or my Neanderthal views"); wind farms ("an iniquitous racket").
Do say: "Wouldn't it be great if Rice and Lloyd Webber got back together."
Actually, don't say: "Wouldn't it be great if Rice and Lloyd Webber got back together."
