One of the problems was an unsympathetic central character, and Fielding later concluded, “People don’t want to go to a musical and hear nasty things.” After a few weeks Len Carriou, playing Ziegfeld, departed, and Fielding tried to save the expensive d?cle by making extensive revisions, bringing in Topol to play the showman and having Tommy Steele take over direction. But the show’s time had passed, even though this production offered the piquant delight of seeing Charisse sing a duet with Dora Bryan, who stole the show in the role originally played by Hy Hazell.Fielding’s nadir was undoubtedly Ziegfeld (1988), a biography of the legendary producer. Though many reviewing the latter show asked, “Why?”, it proved very popular.In 1986 Fielding revived Charlie Girl, starring Cyd Charisse, whose legs he insured for a million pounds. Tommy Steele continued to be good luck for the producer with his starring roles in Hans Andersen (based on the Goldwyn film) and a stage version of Singin’ in the Rain.

Rogers wrote, I walked down the gangplank of the Bremen and right toward a greeting committee, arranged by Mr Fielding, which included a full orchestra playing their heads off.At the railway station in London, a horse-drawn open carriage was waiting for the star, so that she could wave to people en route to her hotel.A revival of Show Boat (1971) featuring Cleo Laine and Lorna Dallas, did well, and Barnum (1981), starring Michael Crawford, was a hit, but a lavish Gone with the Wind (1972) at Drury Lane, lost money, as did The Biograph Girl (1980). Opening at the Cambridge Theatre in 1963, Half a Sixpence was a big success, the title tune and Steele’s show-stopping “Flash, Bang, Wallop” being its major hits, and Fielding was co-producer of the Broadway version (1965), which also starred Steele. The show was nominated for five Tonys including Best Musical, but it was the year when Fiddler on the Roof captured virtually all the musical awards.In 1965 Fielding produced Charlie Girl, his biggest hit, though it received some of the worst reviews ever. Cannily cast, with the beloved veteran Anna Neagle co-starring with teen favourite Joe Brown, it was enthusiastically promoted by Fielding and became his longest-running show – five years and 2,201 performances. (When Brown left the cast, another pop favourite, Gerry Marsden, took over and sustained the show’s double-barrelled star appeal.)Fielding’s subsequent shows had varied fortunes – Man of Magic (1966), based on the life of escape artist Houdini, ran for only 135 performances, but Sweet Charity (1967), starring Juliet Prowse, was a hit, and Mame (1969) attracted much attention because of its star, Ginger Rogers, who arrived at Southampton in a Jean Louis-designed outfit of lynx fur-trimmed coat over a sand-coloured dress of the same material, with boots in matching sand colour. Ariel Sharon is the elected leader of the Israelis just as Yasser Arafat is the elected leader of the Palestinians. Peace will only come when there is a groundswell on both sides wanting it.But the wall is an obscenity, an act not only deeply destructive in its own terms but also contradictory to any effort to produce some lasting settlement between Arab and Israeli.

But each day it exists and each kilometre it extends, it creates new resentments on the ground of communities divided from each other, of workers who cannot get to work and farmers whose olive groves have been uprooted. And as the Palestinian dream becomes more unattainable, so the educated leadership will drift abroad leaving behind a simmering cauldron of young unemployed men and women ready for martyrdom.There’s not a great deal that the outside world can do about this. For without the road-map the Middle East is embarked on a road of bitterness and despair among the Palestinians that can only end in another cycle of terrorism which keeps the whole of the Arab world on edge.In the short term, of course, the wall may increase Israel’s security. The failure of the road-map can be easily blamed on the Palestinians, despite the provocations of Israel’s assassination policy (and the Palestinians are their own worst enemy on this score).As for the other members of the quartet that brought the plan into being – Russia, the UN and Europe – they could not even produce a statement after their last meeting in Washington while, to all outward appearance, the UK has simply gone to ground on the issue.It shouldn’t. But the talk in Washington is now all of “disengagement.” Bush won’t even discuss the issue as long as Arafat is there, and re-election politics don’t encourage him to do so. Now even that has gone.Condoleezza Rice, the woman in charge of US policy on the road-map, and her master, George Bush, are none too happy with the wall. It was never built on any degree of trust between the parties.

Instead it was entirely dependent on the commitment of the Bush administration’s willingness to put the squeeze on Jerusalem. To all, intents and purposes the wall means the end of the road-map to peace, and it is dishonest of the Israeli government to pretend otherwise.The road-map was probably doomed in any case. You can even argue that it is something brought upon the Palestinians by their own actions in sending over suicide bombers. But what you cannot do is to pretend that it is compatible with any desire for a peace settlement or willingness to see a viable Palestinian state. Even if he did deny it now (which he doesn’t), enough has been leaked in the Israeli press of the proposed course of the wall to make it clear that its intention to incorporate as much as 40 per cent of Palestinian territory.You can defend this if you so wish as essential to Israel’s security – although the planned route of the wall would indicate wider territorial ambitions.