Songwriting
Mike has written songs that have been recorded by dozens of different artists, including Cliff Richard, David Essex, Leo Sayer, Gene Pitney, Paul Young, Justin Hayward, Alvin Stardust, Steve Harley, The Cheeky Girls, Donovan, Kym Mazelle, Marc Almond, Don McLean, Captain Sensible, Darren Day and Matchbox.

His concept album 'Songs,' featuring Mike's music and the words of Sir John Betjeman the former Poet Laureate. As well having written the hit singles More To Life for Cliff Richard and Myfanwy for David Essex, he also contributed to the lyrics and featured on one of Slade's big hits, Radio Wall Of Sound.

Following the Tsunami disaster he put together a single for the charity, enlisting the likes of The Bee Gees, Cliff Richard, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Boy George, Steve Winwood, Russell Watson and Jon Anderson to sing on it. He also pulled in an all-star backing group in former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman on bass, Rick Wakeman on synth, Kenney Jones from the Who on percussion, Gary Moore on guitar and members of The Beach Boys and America on backing vocals. The song, Grief Never Grows Old reached No 4 in the chart and is still featured on some 2,500,000 web sites.

January 2005 saw the release in Japan of a 24 track CD of Mike's record releases from the late 70's and 80's, featuring seventeen of his own songs. The album was released in the UK on Angel Air in 2008.

Musicals
Mike has written several successful stage musicals, including Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, Oscar, Young Apollo, Ricky Nelson Teenage Idol and more recently Oh Puck! and 'Cliff.' The latter toured to much acclaim ending with a good run in the West End at The Prince of Wales during 2003 with Mike himself starring in the show. Many distinguished actors and actresses have been involved in his musicals including Nyree Dawn Porter, Anton Rogers, Brian Glover, Darren Day, Colin Baker, Don Gallagher and Alex Hanson. His producers include Andrew Lloyd Webber, Bill Kenwright, That'll Be The Day and Apollo Leisure.

Books
As co-author of the Guinness Book of Hit Singles and subsequent titles, he had a number one best-selling book whose sales went on to total millions. He has written 35 books in all, including biographies, music, and poetry. His currently available tomes include Forever England, a biography of Rupert Brooke, Hodder's best-selling 100 Favourite Poems and 100 Favourite Humorous Poems, Major to Minor [The history of the songwriter in Britain and America over the last 200 years] and The South Coast Beat Scene of the 1960's.

Films
During the 90's, Mike was commissioned to write the music for the Children's Film Unit Film, How's Business, and with Simon May wrote the title song for Midsummer Films release Caught In The Act, which received the Jury award of Excellence at the Laguna Festival in the USA in 1996. He has also written several film scripts, including Forever England, about the life and times of Rupert Brooke, a film on pirate radio, Radio Cool, which is and packed with great 60's music, a comedy Fly Me To The Moon, Wenceslas, and Great Expectations.

In 2007 he appeared as himself in Midsummer Murders and as Mickey Taylor in the psychological thriller Inside Out, also co-writing several songs for the soundtrack.