The Great British Musical
Now is a great time to go and see a musical, especially if you think it’s not for you generally, because of the vast number of “Jukebox Musicals” on at the moment. These are musicals consisting of songs by famous artists or groups put into a musical format, ranging from the cheesy and longest running- ‘Mamma Mia!’ to more rock orientated shows such as ‘We Will Rock You’ (the Queen Musical) and the soon-to-open ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’ (based on the music of Blondie). Although I’m not a personal fan of this form of musical, they’re at least a way of getting reluctant friends to a show.
In the past year there has also been a recent influx of new American musicals that have all had critical and financial success on Broadway. ‘Avenue Q’, ‘Wicked’ and ‘Spamalot’ all arrived last year, and having seen all three, each appeals to a different type of person who would not normally like musicals.
Add to that ‘Hairspray’ which begins previews on October 11th following the success of the film version, and you’re spoiled for choice. Yet everybody still insists they have to see ‘Phantom of the Opera’ or ‘Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat’. Both of these play in theatres owned by the Lord himself, showing a false sense of security, as we cannot know how well his shows are doing. Yet there are many more shows in the West End, although few original scores.
There are also many more writers than Lloyd Webber, some well established such as Kander and Ebb (‘Chicago’) and new exciting imports from America such as ‘Avenue Q’ writers Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx (-these guys also wrote the Scrubs musical episode!)
Ask most people in Britain to name a musical and they’re guaranteed to answer with an Andrew Lloyd Webber- or rather a musical they think is by him. No matter how much he likes to make out, ‘The Sound of Music’ was NOT written by Andrew Lloyd Webber- neither was ‘Les Miserables’, or ‘Miss Saigon’. And even then, he only writes the music for his shows. Tim Rice or Don Black usually write the lyrics, so if it’s those poetic words you like so much about ‘Cats’ (well that was T.S. Elliot) or ‘Aspects of Love’, that wasn’t him either. It’s not even as if he is the only Briton to have ever written a musical, Willy Russell’s ‘Blood Brothers’ has been running for 19 years, and Richard O’Brien (that bald guy off ‘Crystal Maze’) wrote ‘The Rocky Horror Show’- the ultimate Cult musical. So why is Webber seen as the saviour of the West End? And is his music really that great?
The responsibility for the success of the Lloyd Webber musicals actually lies with Cameron Mackintosh- the true saviour of British Musical Theatre. He produced all those big dramatic musicals from the eighties; Webber’s ‘Phantom’, ‘Joseph’, ‘Starlight Express’ and ‘Cats’ as well as Boubil and Schönbergs’ ‘Les Miserables’ and ‘Miss Saigon’. These were all high grossing but not that favoured by critics, so many are left divided on the issue. If Mackintosh hadn’t come along, Webber would never have had enough exposure to get things off the ground.
I must admit that not all Webber is bad, the second half of ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ is pretty amazing. ‘Evita’ isn’t bad and I have to love ‘Starlight Express’ for the cheese and sexual innuendo (it was also the second musical I ever saw). But in the case of decent musical score, ‘JCS’ was his second musical and ‘Evita’ his fourth. After this, it appears that Lloyd Webber just recycles his melodies with someone else adding new lyrics. Examples of this include: “Close Every Door to Me” from ‘Joseph’ echoing Judas’ betrayal and death from ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’. “Love Changes Everything” is found in “I Believe My Heart” from ‘The Woman in White’ (Webber’s latest musical and one of his only flops). “All I Ask of You” from Phantom takes its melody from “With One Look” from ‘Sunset Boulevard’. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with these melodies, but surely the point of furthering musical theatre is to try new and different ideas?
So the future of British musical theatre is left in the hands of a man who has taken to finding his lead actors through reality television. Is this really what we want? It appears to be a comment on the style of his musicals- made for commercialism and popularity rather than artistic integrity. He’s like the skinny jeans of the theatre world- everybody thinks they should wear them, but they really do nothing for you. Go and see a proper musical. Hairspray opened last Thursday.
