Curtain up on the clash of the titans

"APPRENTICE" tycoon Lord Sugar is set to become a star of the stage thanks to a Lees playwright.

Daniel Thackeray, an Oldham Coliseum favourite, brings a clash of the electronic titans to Greater Manchester's Fringe Festival this summer focusing on the entrepreneur's crunch meeting with Sir Clive Sinclair in 1986.

The production will tell the story of the rivalry between Amstrad, which Lord Sugar owned, and Sir Clive's Spectrum, which was the world's best-selling computer at the time.

Daniel (30) describes the restaurant meeting as a "tense first date" in the play — where Lord Sugar, famous for hiring and firing on the small screen, bought the marketing and merchandising rights to Sir Clive's inventions for £5 million.

He said: "The play will provide the drama of what the men went through during that period — two masters in the technology field.

"One was a Cambridge don, the other an East End trader done good, and they both wanted different things.

"We want to provide justice to the two men and also it coincides with the the 30th anniversary of Sir Cliveis ZX Spectrum."

Daniel, who was a former Greater Manchester Police interview typist until he took voluntary redundancy last year, also plays Sir Clive in the production called "Together In Electric Dreams".

The play is performed at the Manchester venue Lass O'Gowrie on July 4 and 5 and on July 8.

Tickets go on sale in June and can be booked online at www.thelass. co.uk



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