Fair – in the course of his life, Hill wrote over 100 scripts for various television programmes. His other commissions for various theatres include: The Curse of the Werewolf, The Mummy's Tomb, Mafeking, The Three Musketeers, Bel Ami, The Living Dead, and a new translation of Jacques Offenbach's La Vie parisienne. Hill was also commissioned for productions of Sweeney Todd, Little Shop of Horrors, and a Narnia trilogy. He also adapted and directed two books by Catherine Cookson and completed a third for the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. He left Theatre Workshop in 1976 and worked for some years as the Director of Productions at the Newcastle Playhouse. That same year, he first staged his version of Phantom of the Opera at the Duke's Playhouse in Lancaster (and also on Morecambe Pier). In 1983, he adapted Catherine Cookson's Katie Mulholland into a stage musical for the Playhouse with songs by Eric Boswell. In 1984, an updated version of Phantom of the Opera was revived and produced in a joint production with the Newcastle Playhouse and the Theatre Royal Stratford East. Andrew Lloyd Webber was inspired by the production and wrote his musical The Phantom of the Opera, which opened in the West End in 1986 after talks of staging Hill's version fell through. Hill's Phantom went abroad to St. Louis in the United States in 1987 and had another major production in San Francisco in 1988. The musical then embarked on a two-year-long national tour of the US from 1989 to 1991. The show also transferred to the West End in 1991 but, despite excellent notices, did badly at the box office and was forced to close earlier than expected. Since then, Phantom of the Opera has arguably become one of his most famous works and has toured the world – the most recent production was in Tokyo, Japan in November 2004. The Invisible Man, with illusions by the magician, Paul Kieve, fared much better in the West End, transferring from Stratford East to the Vaudeville Theatre in 1993. This show was a particular favourite of Hill's, combining his love of stage trickery and optical jokes, including the unbandaged 'invisible' head of the Invisible Man smoking a cigar. At his request, everyone working in the theatre, from the cleaning staff upwards, signed a document forbidding them to reveal how this was done to the press. Despite having cancer intermittently for 12