Oh Mummy

Veronica Lee sees "many layers of irony" in Mamma Mia. I've only seen the film but I must have missed them, unless they were in the decision to cast three middle-aged men who can't sing or dance in a musical. Apparently I also failed to experience the "life-affirming joy"; mostly I just cringed behind a cushion.

But you can't argue with money. Mammia Mia is ten years old in the West End, has gone around the planet and done business at the box office. When was the last time that happened? Cabaret in the '70s?

In terms of musical theatre, however, it's really not much more than a souped-up karaoke evening. Nothing wrong with that. It's helped keep many an actor, musician and hen night party off the streets at night, for which we must be grateful. But Kander and Ebb it ain't.

Almost Famous

Michael Billington has been taking in A Little Night Music:

"One of the pleasures of A Weekend in the Country, the second most famous song in this Stephen Sondheim musical..."

The second most famous song in a Sondheim musical? So that would be not very famous at all, then.

Meanwhile Charles Spencer find the seats comfier in the West End. It's good to get some insight from the professionals.

Lordy Lordy

Lord Andy makes a rare appearance in the House on the issue of creative artists and digital piracy:

"The question that occurs to me is whether, in ten years time, Britain will be a place that the Beatles could have emerged from?

Or Connie Fisher for that matter...

... Not in a world where there are no longer shops where you can buy the physical products and where the internet is a Somalia of unregulated theft and piracy."

Although presumably with fewer firearms.

I can see His Lordship's point but I fear that the horse may have bolted on this one. And I'm not so sure that all this digitising will really put a stranglehold on talent. What it will do, however, is put a premium on live performance which, it seems to me, is no bad thing for music and theatre lovers.