Catherine Johnson penned the West End phenomenon when the show's producers asked her to write a play around the songs of Abba. She came up with the story of Donna, a single mum who lives on a Greek island with Sophie, her daughter. Sophie, who is getting married, reads her mother's diary and discovers that any one of her mother's three ex-lovers could be her father, so she invites all three to her wedding in the hope of finding out.
Americans were keen on Abba and she hopes opening night on Broadway, planned for October, will turn the show into a Lloyd Webber-style international success. It is almost certain to be a smash when Dancing Queen and other hits are belted out for the first time this week end on stage in Melbourne. Of all the countries that appreciated Abba, Australia tops the list.
So life is definitely sweet for Catherine, but it hasn't always been. She had wanted to become a writer since the age of five, but was expelled from school at 16 and found herself working at Debenhams. She got married when she was 18 and was divorced at 24. Then she embarked on a new relationship and found herself unemployed, with a young child and another on the way by the time she was 29.
It wasn't long before Catherine became angry with herself for doing nothing to realise her childhood dream of becoming a writer.
"I got to 30 and thought: I've got to stop frittering my life away. I had written things as an adult like short stories and novels, but I never finished them."
The turning point in Catherine's life came when she spotted a playwriting competition advertised in her local Bristol newspaper. "I had to enter. This was an opportunity to see if I could write something from start to finish."
She wrote Rag Doll, a play about child abuse and incest. Several months after entering the competition Catherine walked away with an award and the play was shown at the Old Vic theatre in Bristol. That was in 1988 and since then Catherine has worked continuously as a writer.
Her numerous hit plays include Boys Mean Business, Dead Sheep and, more recently, Shang-a-Lang, which tells the story of three female Bay City Rollers fans nearing 40 who spend a 70s tribute weekend at an English holiday camp.
Along the way there have been stints writing for television. First there were two episodes of Casualty and then some episodes of the hit BBC comedy Love Hurts.
Catherine got the opportunity to write Mamma Mia! thanks to Terry Johnson, the award-winning writer and director who adapted the film version of the graduate for the West End. He recommended Catherine to Judy Craymer, who was co-producing Mamma Mia!, with former Abba band member Bjorn Ulvaeus.
Catherine's success has allowed her to provide a comfortable life for her children, Huw, 16, and Myfi, 13, in a smart area of Bristol.
Her own upbringing was comfortable, but not exactly trauma free. At school, she was written off for bad behaviour and finally expelled for wearing a halterneck top that her headmaster warned "exposed too much flesh".
Despite the resounding success of Mamma Mia! Catherine does not regard it as her big break. "Rag Doll was my big break, because it set me on the road to a pretty good career. Mamma Mia! was my big pay-back time."
But the show hasn't made her a millionaire. At least not yet. "If it does well in Australia and New York, then perhaps I will become a millionaire. It's far more of a possibility than winning the lottery or working in a record shop."
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