Adrian Mitchell

I was a theatre reviewer for a few years covering the Cardiff area. One production I recall was a pot pourri of scenes got together by Adrian Mitchell who was, for a year, resident writer at Cardiff University. It was watchable but not outstanding. The only thing I recall from it now was a group of people singing, to the tune of Zipper de doo dah, the words "Zipper de doo dah, zipper de ay, tell the world we are glad to be gay" - something like that.
Another more ambitious show he staged was loosely based on three artists, two of which I knew of, Bix Biderbeck and Hoagy Carmichael, the third person I can't bring to mind.
When Adrian Mitchell finished his year at Cardiff he said to a friend of mine who was, like him, a poet, "While I've been here no one in the English Department has seemed to want to know me." My friend said "Perhaps that's because you're not dead yet."
Now he is. I wonder if his work will now be taken more seriously by the department of English at the University.
An American writer died, can't recall who, and it inspired a journalist wag to write: "So and So is dead; great career move."