Guest Of Honour

When was the last time you were here?

""a long time ago, 1985 or 86, i think.""

""this building had been unoccupied for quite a few years now, it must have cost a fortune to renovate for this occasion.""

""call it sentimentality. the city has been pretty badly run down in the past few years, and i'm grateful that i can pay back some of those wonderful times i had back then.""

""tell me a little bit about those times.""

""oh it was a different world, you cannot convey that today. we were young, we were strong, paris was a glittering metropolis full of rich, beautiful people, an unreal place. it was like a dream, sitting here, drinking champagne, watching the show, the acrobats, the dancers, the magicians. oh yes, and it was my birthday, someone asked me on stage, those polite french you know.

A few weeks ago when i received the invitation for this evening, i was reminded of the old days and i suggested that we hold it here.""

""why 'alphaville'?""

""that was the last venture i undertook with the guys before harvey had that fatal accident in la. he gave me a script and claimed it was ideal material for a musical. for once he was right. in fact it turned out to be our breakthrough.""

""tonight looks set to be another major success. aren't you a little sad that the rest of the band can't join in?""

""well, i am, so to speak, the last of the pack ... no, not really, we've all lived our lives, it just seems to take me the longest.""

""that sounds tired.""

""i am 72-years-old. we had a fabulous time. we danced upon the volcano. then came the war, after that the comeback. to this day people remember us, want to hear the old hits, the musicals, even here. quite flattering. you know yourself how hard it is to enter europe nowadays. but here i am!

And no, i'm not tired.

Just a little... sentimental.""

""why are you laughing?""

""harvey used to hate sentimentality.

That was it, the one thing he always accused me of: sentimentality.

He thought i didn't know what the word really meant.""

""after his death many people thought it would be the end for the band too.""

""everybody thought that including us.

It seemed impossible to replace him.

He, by the way, never believed that and, thank god, he was right.

It only really got going afterwards.""

""back to alphaville. a lot of people wonder whether the musical is autobiographical, or whether ...""

""alphaville is pure fiction. everything is made up. it has nothing at all to do with reality. except ... i preferred the raw material, it had a happy ending, i liked that, a comedy to the end. but harvey claimed that the ending needed to be tragic, all great musicals have tragic endings, that's life. still, i thought alphaville had nothing to do with real life, absolutely nothing.""

""harvey persevered with his opinion though.""

""he did that occasionally ... but (laughs) at least i stopped him from making marian into a boy.""

""a boy? that's absurd!""

""i told him, if you want the whole thing to seem a bit more real it's got to be a girl...""

""monsieur lloyd, thank you for your time.""