So What's Wrong With Sondheim, Then?

So asks Comedy Thos of Sage Tim on a previous episode of MusicalTalk. It's a question worth asking if only because it's so rarely asked. There's so much to love with Sondheim's work, it seems a bit perverse to dwell on the negative.

But I enjoy a challenge, so here goes.

The best place to go for an answer is Sondheim himself. He is his own most observant critic. This is unusual. Good criticism requires a certain distance and most writers are too close to their work to assess it properly.

Fortunately Big Steve has been doing some assessing in his recently published collection of lyrics Finishing the Hat (or Fin-i-sh-ing-the-Hat, as I like to think of it). I'm only half way through but already there's plenty of good stuff to chew over. Of course he picks up a lot of lyrical sins in his early work: verbosity, redundancy, inconsistent characterisation, lazy rhyme schemes. But these are technical aspects. I think there is something deeper.

When it was publicised the book was trailed as Sondhiem dumping on the Pantheon of Great Broadway Lyricists including his mentor, Oscar Hammerstein. But this just isn't true. His notes on Hammerstein are much more revealing.

Big Steve quite rightly has a few digs: the redundancy and plodding didacticism ("You've got to be taught before it's too late/Before you are six or seven or eight"); the flowery operetta hangovers ("Softer than starlight, are you"); the sentimental bird imagery ("like a lark that is learning to pray").

Easy targets, all. But this is missing the woods for the trees. Here's how he concludes his appraisal (p.37):

"Hammerstein rarely has the colloquial ease of Berlin, the sophistication of Porter, the humour of Hart and Gershwin, the inventiveness of Harburg or the grace of Fields, but his lyrics are sui generis, and when they are at their best they are more than heartfelt and passionate, they are monumental...The flaws in Oscar's lyrics are more apparent than those of the others because he is speaking deeply from himself through his characters and therefore has no persona to hide behind. He is exposed, sentimental warts and all, every minute and in every word...In the end, it's not the sentimentality but the monumentality that matters"

This, remember, is Big Steve's assessment of Hammerstein as a lyricist. He's almost always considered as a significant book writer and theatrical innovator, probably the most significant figure in the development of the Broadway musical. But as a lyricist he is sometimes overlooked. Not so for Big Steve: Hammerstein's lyrics are monumental and it's the monumentality that matters.

In this praise of Hammerstein, I think there's also criticism of Sondheim. For me, Sondheim's lyrics are not monumental in the same way. They don't speak deeply from Sondheim himself. They can, at times, be cold and distant, as if something is being held back. He isn't exposed, warts and all, in every minute and every word.

In answer to the original question, Sage Tim suggested an occassional smugness in Sondheim's work. This may be true. But I think there's a more significant criticism, that he sometimes struggles to speak deeply with the same exposed, courageous simplicity of his mentor.

However carfeful you are, some things just can't be taught.

There's Something To Say For Having Something To Say

Bit slow in picking up on this one but there have been some musical musings from Boff Whalley over at The Guardian.

Hard to know where to start. At first I thought it was just another anti-Lord Andy rant. But not so, says the author. He clarifies things a bit in the comments:

"It's about how capitalism shifts generally and specifically towards the safe, easy money. Webber, for all his worth, is the easy money"

He may be now but he wasn't then. Cats struggled to find investors. Only after that did he look like a sure-fire bet. And since Phantom his shows have had more investment but made less money. Seems to me that this capitalism thing is a bit more complicated than Mr Whalley is letting on.

"The article (heavily edited, as it happens) is about writing musicals that (and I quote) 'have something to say'"

As opposed to those silent musicals? I'm kidding. But honestly, what does this mean? I'll come back to this.

"Webber's musicals just don't fit in this arts-cuts world. They have bugger all to say."

To the best of my knowledge, Lord Andy's shows don't rely on government subsidies. Whatever they have anything to say or not, they're bugger all to do with the arts-cuts world.

"They blot out the sun and soak up the money."

Again, they're not competing with subsidised theatre so I'm not sure how they're blotting out anything. And that money they're soaking up is paying the wages of actors, musicians, stage hands, front of house and the rest.

"They give people the impression that musical theatre has to be through-composed and grand. A sort of pretend-opera for the masses."

This I sort of agree with. Imitation is inevitable when somebody's successful. But that applies in artistic terms as much as in commercial ones. Lots of musical writers pretend to be Stephen Sondheim.

"Don't try to sell me the idea that Webber is avant-garde"

Wouldn't dare. Lord Andy certainly isn't before his time. I don't see him as pre-empting a future direction for musicals. He's more of a one-off original. He may have had his imitators but, so far, none have had the same success by following in his footsteps.

"Any writer who sucks up to the establishment and accepts their patronage ought to be viewed with nothing less than suspicion"

Isn't government-subsidised theatre a bit like accepting the patronage of the establishment?

"I only watch Man Utd on telly in the hope that someone will beat them. I feel the same about Webber"

Nice. No anti-Lloyd Webber rant here. Good to clarify that.

Now obviously I'm in disagreement with a lot of this. I think the article falls into the trap of seeing big, commercial theatre as "safe" and smaller-scale, subsidised work as "risky". If anything, when it comes to musicals, it's probably the other way round.

But there is, I think, a distinction worth making between musicals that have "something to say" and the rest, although it's a bit hard to work out how Mr Whalley makes that distinction. He seems to approve of West Side Story, Hairspray and small-scale musicals dislikes Evita, Cats, Disney and jukebox musicals. To my mind, it's the last category where the true distinction lies.

How does a musical "say" anything? Primarily through its songs. It's hard to see how a musical writer who has something to say can do so by stuffing old songs into a new plot. Jukebox musicals are undoubtedly hard to get right and can be far better nights out than a musical with new songs. But I'm not really sure that they can ever have much to say.

That's the real distinction to be drawn. In the end it's not about the size of the budget, the scale of the production or the whether it's commercial or subsidised theatre. It's about the songs.

Boff Whalley has written the songs for a show about a Liverpool family divided by the Dockers' strikes of the 1960s. I'm sure he hopes that the songs tell the story, that the story has something important to say and that the show's successful. In that, I suspect he has more in common with Lord Andy than he'd care to admit.

A Little Theory on Musical Stars and Their Making

Interesting post from Mark Shenton at the Stage.

He discusses two recent musical stars: Elena Rogers who took the lead in Evita a few years back and Tracie Bennett who is curently playing Judy Garland in End of the Rainbow. Mark Shenton points out that neither were the overnight sensations that is sometimes claimed. Both paid their dues before their big breaks.

This is often the case and I don't doubt their talent or that they've earned their stripes. But are they stars? Certainly they are in the theatreland but what about the country at large? Neither is really a household name and I doubt they will be any time soon. In fact very few musical stars are household names. Here's my little theory as to why.

First I have to make a distinction between Musical Stars, that is stars who earned their stardom doing musicals, and Stars Who Do Musicals, that is someone from TV (Denise van Outen) or pop (Mel C) or non-musical theatre (Dame Judi Dench) or Bolton (Peter Kay) successfully making it in a musical. This is, by the way, not a judgement on the abilities of Stars Who Do Musicals, only a remark on their route to stardom.

I can only think of two current Musical Stars who became household names by starring in musicals: Elaine Page and Michael Ball. Elaine Page became with Evita and later by singing "Memory" from Cats and Michael Ball with "Love Changes Everything" from Aspects of Love. It probably helped that they both had chart hits and subsequently have appeared on TV and radio but, essentially, it was the musicals what made 'em.

You could add Michael Crawford to the list. Although he had previously made his name in a TV sitcom, he became even more famous for doing Phantom of the Opera. Sheridan Smith may be following a similar sort of path with Legally Blonde.

From this I surmise that to become a Musical Star you need to do two things:

1. Star in an original role in an original musical.

And

2. Be associated with a big song from an original musical. (This could be the fatal flaw for Sheridan Smith - Legally Blonde is lacking a hit song)

To prove this little theory with a negative, let's take two top-drawer musical performers who, if it were based on talent alone, probably would be household names but aren't: Ruthie Henshall and Colm Wilkinson. Ruthie Henshall has oodles of talent, has won awards and even made it big on Broadway. But her best-known shows have been revivals (She Loves Me, Crazy for You, Chicago) not originals. Colm Wilkinson did star in a big original (Les Miz) but didn't have a big song to go with it. It took the Mighty SuBo dreaming her dream to give Les Miz its take-home tune.

So that's why Elena Rogers and Tracie Bennett aren't household names. Starring in revivals and doing old Judy Garland songs, however brilliantly, just isn't enough to scale the heights of popular culture. What they need is original shows and original songs. Until we get some more of those, no matter how good the performers, we won't get any more Musical Stars.

Just a little theory.

Dahl M for Mathilda

I was pretty interested when I first heard of a musical version of Roald Dahl's Mathilda, especially when Tim Minchin was named as the songwriter. It seemed like a terrific match of author and subject. It still does.

But this report from the Telegraph's Serena Allott is a bit of a worry. Here's the show's book writer Dennis Kelly:

"'I'd never written a musical,' Kelly says. 'I don't particularly like
musicals.'"

You hear a lot of this from new musical writers and I never really understand it. No first-time playwright advertises their play by telling reporters that "well, to be honest, theatre's not really my bag, I'm afraid". If you don't like musicals, don't write 'em.

"Kelly admits that he initially assumed that the collaboration would entail him writing the play and plonking Minchin’s songs into it where he saw fit. 'Slowly I began to understand that the songs had to tell the story as much as the dialogue.'"

It doesn't exactly fill you with confidence. You're opening a new musical with a book writer who doesn't like musicals and who only recently realized that songs are an important part of the storytelling. Hmm.

British writers often give this impression of underestimating musicals, apparently unaware of the thatrical tradition from Show Boat to Phantom and thinking that all you really need's some flash sets and some catchy tunes, then sit back and enjoy your percentage. The idea that musicals are actually written, as opposed to merely produced, seems like a novelty.

Perhaps this is being unfair but that's often my impression. I suspect it's because, even now, when the West End is choca with musicals, there's still not what you could call a tradition of musicals in British theatre. For the most part British theatre is the spoken word; musicals are, at best, a bit of fun. They're just not in the blood in quite the way that they are on Broadway.

Now sometimes tradition can be overbearing and ignorance a virtue and I honestly hope that Mathilda is just such a case. And that Dennis Kelly has changed his mind.

Miz-Undertandings

(This refers to an oldish piece which I’ve only just gotten around to blogging about)

Guardian critic Michael Billington reflects on the popular success of Les Miserables and tries to do what must be one of the hardest things for any critic: explain why so many people like something that you don’t.

The first-night reviews of Les Miz were famously dismissive. Although carefully avoiding quoting from his own, Mr. Billington digs up an example from The Sunday Telegraph’s Francis King which, he says, can explain the show’s success: “a lurid Victorian melodrama produced with Victorian lavishness”.

Now, as a first-night reaction, that’s fine. But, really, when you’ve had 25 years to think about it you should really be able to come up with a better explanation than Victorian melodrama. And why should that be such an obvious formula for a hit musical anyway? You can imagine the pitch: “OK, I’ve got a three and a half hour melodrama based on a 19th Century French novel. I know, I know – it’s too long, too old and the French don’t do musicals, right? But, hey, it’s all in the Victoriana, baby”.

As critical appraisal, this doesn’t rub. So what else?

“Victor Hugo's novel wrestles with all kinds of big themes: social injustice, redemption through love, the power of providence. On stage all this is boiled down to the triumph of a good man, Jean Valjean, over the cop who relentlessly pursues him.”

Obviously it’s going to be “boiled down”. That’s always the case from page (and, oh my, there are a lot of pages) to stage. The question is whether you think these “big themes” have been distilled to their essence or dumbed down to the point of cliche. That’s a matter of opinion. But you’ll still find the “big themes” presented in the musical. The power of providence? Valjean sings to God for the protection of a dying Marius (“God on high, Bring Him Home”). Redemption through love? The ghostly reappearance of Fantine at Valjean’s death (“To love another person is to see the face of God”). Social injustice? Er, that would the point of all those actors in raggedy costumes pretending to be cockney down-and-outs (“Look Down, Look Down, the beggars at your feet”).

As for good man vs. bad cop, once again, the writers’ intentions are more complicated. Les Miz has a clear moral compass but, at the same time, it’s not the simplistic morality of Victorian melodrama. It’s much more New Testament-y. The “hero” is a convicted criminal and the “villain” is the embodiment of legal authority. It’s not stock goodies versus baddies but a conflict between a spiritual ethic and a rigid legalistic one.

You may think that all this noble intention is traduced to banal sentimentality in the execution. That’s fine. But at least give the creators credit for their ambition. They didn’t ignore the “big themes” or the moral complexities. That, it could be argued, may even be one of the reasons for the show’s success. But such an argument would also require the critic to have a somewhat higher estimation of the audience:

“And any notion that the show provides a searching account of the social oppression that led to the 1832 uprisings was scotched by a poll taken during the Broadway run, when a majority of theatregoers said they thought it all took place during the French revolution.”

I’d like to see a poll of an audience at Hamlet tell me which century that play’s set in. That doesn’t make the audience stupid. Generally an audience can accept a piece of theatre for what it is rather than what it ain’t and t’ain’t nobody mistaking Les Miz for a history lesson. If anything it’s closer to fairy tale.

So, any further insights?

“What I find intriguing is that we think we live in a very cool, smart, cynical age. Yet, when the chips are down, what we really crave is a contest of good and evil, and lashings of spectacle.”

Ah yes, “spectacle”. The last refuge of a musical theatre critic. Nothing to do with the minor things like book, music or lyrics. Nope, all you really need’s a strobe light and a big pretend barricade. That’ll do it. What’s glaringly missing from Mr. Billington’s piece is some kind of acknowledgement of the writers. Yes, Les Miz is sentimental, but it’s also very skillfully written.

Let me take one example. “Bring Him Home” is a great bit of songwriting. (Claude-Michel Shonberg wrote the music, but crediting the lyricist is a bit trickier. Alain Boubil wrote the original French lyrics, the poet James Fenton wrote the first, rejected draft. But it was Herbert Kretzmer who was brought in to rewrite the final draft and I suspect he was the biggest influence).

The tune begins with a big octave leap that takes the singer into a head voice. That’s important. Valjean is the hero. Up to this point he has demonstrated that he is strong, resourceful and brave. But then we get that octave leap and everything changes. The voice is thin, quiet and fragile. This is a hero reduced to helplessness. The tune tells us that with one musical interval.

Good news for the composer; nightmare for the lyricist. The A section has 4 lines. The first three are set to a series of 3-note phrases and so require short 3-syllable phrases. And those syllables are on long high notes so that means a lot of open vowel sounds. The last line gets six syllables. So that’s a total of four lines with 16 syllables to get your meaning across. Oh, and don’t forget the rhymes on the second and third lines. This is trickier than a Haiku the result is admirable:

“God on high
Hear my prayer
In my need
You have always been there"

It nothing on the page. It’s never going to win any poetry prizes (which is why I suspect it’s more Herbert Kretzmer’s than James Fenton’s). But, as musical theatre goes, this is very skillful writing. The music expresses the character; the lyric compliments and allows for that expression. The story goes that the first time “Bring Him Home” was heard during run-throughs, a hush went through the theatre as everyone turned to listen. That’s still happening today.

Now I don’t expect any West End critic to like any particular show. But I would expect them to look a little deeper when discussing what has been a West End fixture for quarter of a century. To dismiss Les Miz with snippy comments about Victorian melodrama, spectacle and dumb audience members is the critical equivalent of sticking two fingers in your ears and shouting “I can’t hear you!”. It’s most unbecoming.

Lyric Writing Rules OK

An interesting discussion over at The Libretto between Jenifer Toksvig and Tim Saward on craft and lyric writing in general and scansion and prosody in particular. All improbably sparked off by this little ditty from the Horrible Histories programme about Pachacuti, an Incan Lord.

His Lordship seems to have divided opinions. Jenifer casts a disapproving eye over the scansion and prosody and generally comes at the question from the “Rules Are There For A Reason” end of things. Tim, on the other hand, is relaxed about the lack of craft and is more minded to ask “Whose Rules Are They Anyway?”. It’s a bit like the Culture Wars in miniature.

Personally I tend towards Jenifer’s school of thought when it comes to the Rules of scansion and prosody. Let me add my penny’s worth:

1. Tim notes that there are many competing Rules in lyric writing. As such, why should the Rules about scansion and prosody be privileged? Well, because they get to the heart of what lyric writing is. In songwriting terms, scansion and prosody are the way that syllables are fitted to musical notes and the way that words are arranged to match to rhythm, emphasis and mood. That's a pretty good starting point for any lyricist thinking about their lyrics. Of course there will be other concerns such as beauty and humour and truth and the rest, but you’ll find these concerns in any creative endeavour. Scansion and prosody are particularly important to a lyricist.

2. This isn’t a quest for Perfection. But it does try and provide some Basic Entry Requirements. A lyric may be plain, boring, unfunny and stupid but if it has good scansion and prosody, it will at least be sing-able. It may not be a good lyric but it will be a practical one; it fulfils a basic requirement. If I were designing a new chair I could consider all kinds of exciting colours and shapes and materials. But primarily I’d make sure I could sit on it.

3. Is it worth knowing these Rules about scansion and prosody? Here I concede a point. If these Rules are instinctive (as they are to do with the inherent way we hear language and music) rather than imposed, then a lyricist doesn’t necessarily have to be conscious of them. All he needs is a sensitive ear rather than a set of Rules. This is true and, if instinct gets you through to the final draft, then good for you. But being aware of scansion and prosody and analysing a lyric in those terms is another way of solving problems. If your instinct tells you that a lyric doesn’t sound quite right, then scansion and prosody may tell you why. The Rules won’t make you write a good song but they should stop you writing a careless one.

The Incan ditty is a good idea but, with a bit more attention to scansion and prosody, the execution could have been better. This doesn’t in itself herald the end of Western Civilization. But it does seem a shame.

Feel the Franchise

Interesting rumblings over the blog post "Globalised Theatre and the Rise of the Monster Musical" from Nosheen Iqbal at the Guardian. From the title I thought she was talking about Shrek. But no, it's the globalisation that's the monster and it's turning her stomach:

"But am I the only one who feels a bit queasy about theatre nakedly pitched as exactly that: product? A commodity rather than culture, stock to invest in financially for profit rather than emotionally for the experience?"

Personally, pickled onions make me feel a bit queasy; the homogenised commodification of theatre, less so. But that's just me.

Most of her points are ably tackled in the comments by Andrew Hayden. I would only add this. Lord Andy and the Big Mac did indeed create "franchised" musicals in the 1980s. They tended to reproduce the original production of their shows as exactly as possible (hence the McDonalds-isation charge) and, in doing so, reached parts of the world shows didn't normally reach.

What Disney did was different in one important aspect. Disney took its successful film musicals - Beauty and the Beast, Lion King - and reproduced them on stage. The stage versions were deliberately imitative of the films. Of course there were a lot of changes made from screen to stage but these shows, it could be said, are not properly the original products. They're not a theatrical franchise; they're really just one part of a film franchise.

For my money, the Brit's franchising efforts are more impressive. They did it just as well as Disney but without the help of a blockbuster film and the world's biggest entertainment corporation. Their commercial success was (and is) an astonishing achievement.

This may tells us nothing about the artistic achievement of these shows but the exceptional nature of that achievement should at least be recognised.

Better Get Rid Of Your Accent?

Andy Gibson, a New Zealand singer/songwriter/very thorough MPhil research student, has been casting an academical eye over the significant issue of accents in song. New Zealand singers, he reports, are more likely to sing with American accents than their own. This is, of course, not always the case. If you’re a Flight of the Conchords fan you’ll know that Kiwis are just as likely to sing with a French accent:

"Foux du fa fa
Foux du fa fa fa fa"

But Conchords aside, he has a point. Although, when it comes to British singers, you don’t need a sheepskin from Auckland to know it’s true. Just watch any episode of X-Factor Idols Have Talent. On these TV shows you’ll hear the all the glories of This Island Tongue from southern drawls to flat northern vowels. The contestants will speak with a myriad of Cornish, Brum, Scots, Welsh, Oirish and so on. Until, that is, they start to sing. When they open their larynxes all accents take a trip over the Atlantic. “I love you” becomes “Ah luurve yoo” and American English is the accepted standard.

Mr. Gibson takes a long hard look at this. (I admit I didn’t read it all. I stopped when I got to the scary graphs. But the introductary chapters are terrific). He makes some fascinating points:

1. “Singers draw on their memories of popular music when they sing. Their use of American pronunciation in singing is therefore the result of the fact that a majority of their memories of pop singing involve American-influenced phonetic forms” (abstract, x). In other words singers copy other singers. Since most pop songs and a lot of pop singers are American, everyone else ends up singing in American as well.

2. Singing in American English becomes the default position and, thus, singing in non-American English becomes a “wilful act of identity” (p.10, good sociologist phrase that). So when Lilly Allen sings in an English accent it’s a very deliberate choice. But is this wifully acting out her British identity or just willfully lashing out against mainstream pop? Is she being patriotic or merely different?

3. It’s not even as simple as American vs. The Rest. Often singers flit between accents depending on which allows for the best sonority. It also depends on the kind of singing and the kind of song. Reggae singers will always tend towards Jamaican accents even if they’re from East London. Singing that is closer to speech, such as rap and hippity-hop, will lend itself to regional accents easier than, say, opera.

So what does this mean for musicals and does it matter? I think it does. Musicals were born (Show Boat), grew up (Oklahoma) and went through their cynical adolescence stage (Company) on Broadway. Then, after a while, they eventually settled down and devoted themselves to the kids (The Lion King). The point is that musicals are essentially American and that’s the way we tend to hear them.

The British musical accent, such that it is, largely consists of Received Pronunciation (from G&S to Phantom of the Opera) and cock-er-ney (from Oliver! to the lower orders of Les Miz). Essentially it’s Julie Andrews or Anthony Newley and take your pick. There's the odd bit of Geordie in Billy Elliot but that's very much the exception. The accentual field is not a wide one.

Modern musical singers share the same problem as pop singers. The natural tendency is to sing in American English because that is, largely, what has been learned. Audiences have learned this too. It takes a deliberate effort to sing in some form of British English. But that effort can often feel forced or self-conscious as if the singer is trying too hard to be different. Attempting to be true to your own accent can, ironically, make a performance sound inauthentic to an audience.

This is a big problem for British musicals. A pop singer can get away with it. But a musical performer has a character to play and if that character is British, how can you sing the role with a natural, unselfconscious British accent? The answer, or at least the beginning if an answer, lies not with the singers but with the writers. In this I’m going one step further than Andy Gibson's MPhil (although the same point may have been made somewhere in the form of a graph, in which case, I missed it). Writers have to attempt to write songs in a British accent.

Now this is far easier said than done and I’m not sure how you’d begin. It would probably involve unlearning the American musical language even before attempting to create a new British one. But there’s no doubt it in my mind that it starts with the writers.

Take, as an example, this drole little couplet from West Side Story:

“I’ll get a terraced apartment
Better get rid of your accent”

The song is “America” during which a lively group of New York Hispanics debate the merits or otherwise of their adopted homeland. But look where the lyricist Stephen Sondheim (smart fellow, he) puts the rhyme: on the off-beat. Helped along by Leonard Bernstein’s swooping off-beat emphases in the tune the words come out as apart-ment and ac-cent (rather than the “usual” a-part-ment and ac-cent). Why? Because the Hispanic accent puts the empha-sis on the “wrong” sylla-ble. Just try singing “America” in American English or British English or anything other than Hispanic. You can’t because the accent is written into the song.

If there are going to be British musicals then its the British songwriters, as much as their singers, who need to find their voice.

The Very Model Of The Modern Major Musical

Rupert Christiansen in the Telegraph has been leaping on the barricades and waving the flag in defence of Mssrs. Gilbert and Sullivan. Amongst other things he claims that G&S are:

"...a living tradition that remains at the heart and root of just about every musical now playing in the West End or on Broadway"

He probably doesn't have Mamma Mia in mind but, even so, "heart and root" is a big claim.

"It is built on Gilbert's genius for light rhymed verse and Sullivan's genius for melody, which combine in a fusion of text and music that has rarely been equalled, let alone surpassed"

I'd quibble with that one. G&S certainly had their influence on musicals, particularly G. Ira Gershwin, for one, was a Gilbert fan. You can hear it in his lyric to this comedy number from Of Thee I Sing:

"She's the illegitimate daughter of an illegitimate son
Of an illegitimate nephew of Napoleon...
She's contemplating suicide
Because that man, he threw aside
A lady with the blue blood of Napoleon "

Gershwin even goes for the ol' operetta trick of inverting the sentence order to make the rhyme ("Because that man, he threw aside").

But these Gilbert-esque ditties are not what Ira Gershwin is famous for. It's this:

"I got rhythm
I got music
I got my man
Who could ask for anything more?"

This is most un-Gilbert-esque and provides a very different "fusion of text and music". It's not just the casual slang ("I got") that distinguishes it. It's the irregularity of the meter in the final line that's the real tell-tale. It doesn't read well. It's not very satisfying as spoken verse. The words only work, only make sense, only really come alive when they're set to music. You couldn't easily transplant these words onto another tune or vice versa. This is the difference. As Mr. Christiansen rightly points out, Gilbert wrote "light rhymed verse". But Gershwin wrote lyrics.

I suspect the real influence of G&S on musicals is less formal. Beyond those early Broadway lyricists and into the era of the integrated musical, their light grows dimmer. You can't really hear any of their style or structure in the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein (R&H), let alone Stephen Sondheim (S&S) or Andrew Lloyd Webber (AL&W).

But there's no doubt that they set a standard. They demonstrated that musical theatre could be of smart, sophisticated, tuneful and funny. They provided a link to the Old World operetta and an alternative to the vaudevillian model of musical comedy. Maybe not the "root" of every musical then, but certainly the heart.

Who'd Want To Be A Librettist?

Charles "two minds" Spencer gets confused at Into the Woods:

"With characteristic ingenuity, Sondheim weaves together several fairy stories..."

But (there's always a but):

"But in the second half the musical falls apart. James Lapine’s book becomes an increasingly confused mess of plottage..."

So let me understand this. It's the songwriter, Stephen Sondheim, who weaves all the stories together so ingenuously. But it's the book writer, James Lapine, who messes up the plotting in Act II.

Ah, book writers: none of the praise, all of the blame.

Not Just Another Opening, Not Just Another Show

Frank Loesser is having a bit of a celebration with Mark Steyn and MusicalTalk piching in with the festivities. And why not? If you had to name the greatest musical comedy of them all, Guys and Dolls would be a fair choice.

There's so much to enjoy in this score it's hard to know where to begin. So let's start there. The opening song, "Fuge for Tin Horns", sees three "Noo Yowk" no-goods swopping racing tips:

I got the horse right here
The name is Paul Revere
And here's a guy that
says if the weather's clear
Can do, can do, this guy says the horse can do
If he says the horse can do, can do, can do.

The lyrics are a mixture of arty slang ("Now this is no bum steer") and betting talk ("The guy has got him figured at five to nine"). But what's really interesting is the music. It's a fugue which basically means that one person sings the tune and before they're done, another person enters with the same tune, then another and so on. Think of "London's Buring" or "Frere Jacques". The repetition or more precisely, the "imitative counterpoint", gives the music a very formal feel.

So why start Guys and Dolls like this? Well, for one thing, it's funny. And one thing Loesser could do better than anyone was funny. Hoodlums discussing the gee-gees to a classical, almost courtly, style of music is a funny idea. But more importantly it makes the whole story possible.

What is Guys and Dolls about? It's about gambling. The central plot is centred around a bet. Nathan bets big shot guy, Sky, that he can't score a date with a certain Salvation Army doll, Sarah. The whole plot relies on the idea that Sky is obligated to see through the bet. In other words we, the audience, can't be wondering why Sky doesn't just give up at the first hurdle and tell Nathan to forget the whole thing.

The reason is that gambling has rules: bets cannot be reneged, debts must be paid and a man's marker is as binding as a high court judge's ruling (in a less legal sort of a way). This is the world that the opening song sets up. Loesser could have written any number of songs about different aspects of gambling. In fact he does exactly that in the rest of the score. In "The Oldest Established" it's the illegality of gambling and the problem of finding a suitably inconspicuous venue. In "Luck be a Lady" it's the high-charged risk and the pressure of losing it all. In "Sit Down, you're Rocking the Boat" it's the sin of gambling and the comical conversion of Nicely Nicely.

But none of these songs would have set up the plot as nicely nicely as the actual opening number does. By writing a fugue Loesser's telling us that this gambling world has strict and formal rules which gamblers must obey. A kind of gamblers' code, if you like. And no rules, then no code. No code, no plot. No plot, no show. That's the brilliance of "Fugue for Tin Horns". It's not only funny but, in a few short bars, it makes possible the rest of the story.

Is Guys and Dolls the greatest? You can bet on it.

Everyone Says I Love You (Oblique and Declamatory)

Over at MusicalTalk, Comedy Thos has been chinwagging with Posh Josh on the subject of love.

When it comes to love, musicals are your genre. Romantic love songs are standard fare. But, as Thos and Josh point out, it's rarely approached head-on. More often than not, in the classics, it's oblique. They rightly point to Kern and Wodehouse's song "Bill" which has this lovely line:

His form and face
His manly grace
Are not the kind that you
Would find in a statue...
I love him because he's - I don't know -
Because he's just my Bill

Lovely rhymes aside, the sentiment is, on the face of it, not complimentary. Something similar is going on in "My Funny Valentine":

Is your figure less than Greek?
Is your mouth a little weak?
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

Taken at face value the singer seems to be demonstrating their romatic feelings by describing the object of their love as a chubby, wonky-mouthed moron. But this is, thankfully, not the real message. The beautiful but resigned music tells us something else is going on. The singer is in love but not the idealistic kind. They love, not despite the faults of the other person but because of those faults. The song shows us their love is real.

It's also very satisfying dramatically. The Oblique Love Song allows for a sub-text. The songs above are superficially about one thing (complaining about somebody's imperfection) but are really about something else (the depth of the singer's love). That's more interesting for actor and audience alike. In fact the way Oscar Hammerstein uses "Bill" in Showboat makes it even more oblique. Julie sings it in a rehearsal as if it's just another audition piece of a past-their-best lounge act. But we know it means much more to her and that it's not really about some imaginary fella called Bill but about her lost love, Steve.

Moving on a few decades.

Here's the big love song from Phantom of the Opera:

Say you love me
Ev'ry waking moment
Turn my head with talk of summertime...
Anywhere you go let me go too
Love me - that's All I Ask of You

No obliqueness here. No, siree. This is about planting two feet on the floor and telling it like it is, singing what you mean and meaning what you sing. Let's call this a Declamatory Love Song.

Now I think this is one of the things that distinguishes the old musicals from the new. In the old shows the love songs tend to be more oblique, in the new ones they tend to be more declamatory. This may be generalising but I think there is some truth to it.

My sense is that both approaches can work but it does depend on the context. The kind of impassioned sentiment of "All I Ask of You" suits a boldly romantic show such as Phantom of the Opera. The problem is when that kind of declamatory style is used in smaller kinds of shows which call for a more oblique, character-led style. Imagine a modern-day, ordinary character - a student or waitress or an accountant, say - singing "Say you love/Every waking moment". It would sound overblown and silly.

The point is that the Declamatory Love Song has its dramatic limitations. It can only be used to tell certain kinds of stories. For new stories we need a new style of storytelling. Or, perhaps, an old one. Bring on the obliquity.

Stiles and Drewe vs. The Sherman Brothers

Sounds like a hippity-hop collective.

Ah, well. With Over the Rainbow on the telly, it reminds me that this attempt to stage an already-popular film musical with additional songs is nothing new. It's been done before with Mary Poppins which married the Disney songs of the Sherman Brothers, Robert and Richard, with new songs by British songwriters Stiles and Drewe. Their songwriting styles were close enough to be integrated smoothly into one show and, by my count, the final score is about half and half.

As one pithy critic put it, George Stiles and Anthony Drewe are the Tim Henman of musicals which, I suppose, makes Mary Poppins like winning the doubles at Wimbledon: very impressive but not quite the Big Prize. This is a touch unfair to Stiles and Drewe. As well as Mary Poppins their children's show, Honk, has played around the world. But there is still the nagging feeling that they haven't quite landed the big family classic - a Cats, a Joseph, a Sound of Music.

It's hard to say whether the stage version of Mary Poppins would have been the same success if we didn't already know and love those Sherman songs already. Songs such as "Feed the Birds", "Chim Chim Cher-ee" and "Supercaliwotsidoodah..." are part of the popular culture. Having said that, Stiles and Drewe did produce one of their best songs in "Practically Perfect". The word-play, internal rhymes and that quick little 4-note phrase on each "practically" all precisely catch the annoying smugness of the upright Mary Poppins:

Practically Perfect in ev'ry way
Practically Perfect so people say
Each virtue virtually knows no bound
Each trait is great and patently sound

And at the end of the chorus, that 4-note phrase is exquisitely stretched out, syllable by syllable, with the "ev'ry" turned into "ev-e-ry" like an elocution teacher patronising her pupils:

I'm so Prac-ti-cal-ly Perfect
In ev-e-ry way

This is subtle and clever songwriting from an undeniably talented team. But it's also fair to say they had a bit of head start with Mary Poppins.

There's another comparison to be made between Stiles and Drewe and the Sherman Brothers. Both teams also had a crack at Rudyard Kipling. The Shermans were recruited by Disney to do the songs for the animated version of The Jungle Book and Stiles and Drewe got their first break with a stage version of the Just So Stories.

The musical version of Just So has gone through various incarnations since its first productions in the mid-’80s but has never quite caught on (although I suspect its latest version may go on to do well on the schools and youth circuit). The Jungle Book, on the other hand, is still considered a Disney classic. You could put this down to power of the Big Mouse and you’d have a point. But Just So had Cameron Mackintosh on its side and he’s no slouch. Not to mention a roll call of top advisors, including Stephen Sondheim and Mike Ockrent, who helped to develop the material. Steven Spielberg even bought the animation rights. If ever a show was bound for the popular mainstream, it was surely this one. So here we have two songwriting teams of similar ability and style adapting a collection of short stories for children by the same author and each involving a lot of animal characters. Why was one adaptation more successful than the other?

I caught Just So at Chichester Festival Theatre a few years back. On the face of it Rudyard Kipling has a lot to offer a musical adaptor. His prose is full of word-play and sing-songy rhythms (“Before the High and Far-Off Times, O My Best Beloved, came the Time of the Very Beginnings”). But musicals can't rely on word-play alone. They have to have character or, to be more accurate, they have to express character. This is where Just So doesn't quite succeed. Much of the score is warm and witty and charming but the songs don't quite follow through with the characterisations. Let me take a couple of examples to make the point.

Take the characters of the Zebra and Giraffe who totter around in high heels like two Essex clubbers on a girls’ night out. In the spoken bits they whine and whinney in the vulgar venacular of today (“Wha’evaaar!”). But for their number “Pick Up Your Hooves and Trot” they’re suddenly singing in a completely different voice:

Wouldn’t it be amazing
If we could both be grazing
Far from the common herd?
So Pick Up Your Hooves and Trot, girl
Not another word!

That last little formulation,“Not another word!”, is just too quaint for a couple of loud-mouthed laddettes on the razz; it’s Sharon and Tracy sounding more like Flanders and Swann.

In The Jungle Book, on the other hand, the songs are much more in tune with the characters singing them. One of the great scenes in the film is when the King of the Monkey-People tries to persuade Mowgli to teach him how to be human. “I Wanna Be Like You” is a peach of a song and catches the frivolous chatter and general aping around of the wannabe human:

Now I'm the king of the swingers
Oh, the jungle VIP
I've reached the top and had to stop
And that's what botherin' me
I wanna be a man, mancub
And stroll right into town
And be just like the other men
I'm tired of monkeyin' around!

Oh, oobee doo
I Wanna Be Like You...

In a way, this is a similar kind of a song as "Pick Up Your Hooves and Trot". It has the same kind of animal-related word-play ("monkeying around"/"common herd") but the Sherman's song is much more in character. The slang, the swinging tempo, the energetic Dixie rhythm, the jazzy scat, the monkey-like “you-oo-oo” rhymes, the voices, the animation, it’s all so in synch. It’s a brilliant moment which has embeds itself in your mind because the song fits the characters so well. It’s the kind of moment that Just So, for all its charms, never quite finds.

Stiles and Drewe have been the "future" of British musicals for, ooh, a good twenty years now. But really they are old-fashioned writers. A lot of their songs sound as if they could have been written decades ago. That’s not a criticism, by the way. They are best known for writing for young children who probably care less about whether their music is fashionable or not than, say, a teenage audience might. That's also no bar to mainstream success; Lord Andy's music has never been fashionable. But the truth is that despite being the only musical writers, post-Lloyd Webber, to have made a real go of it, their songs and shows haven't quite matched the kind of popular success that the Sherman's songs enjoy.

Yet.

They have undoubted talents. With the right story, the right character and the right songs, who knows? Maybe they can win Wimbledon. Anything can happen.

(Mary Poppins, Just So and The Jungle Book available on Spotify)

Over the Rainbow (Go, Danielle!)

Now obviously this blog is concerned with the art of the true music-theatre form and, as such, would normally be above such shallow popularity contests.

(Danielle's a Wiz!)

But issues have been raised so that comment is required and, thus, I am dutifully casting a critical eye on this television programme.

(Toto'lly Awesome Danielle!)

One complaint has been that no new musical material is being showcased. What we need is not another talented musical singer but a few talented musical writers. Why doesn't Lord Andy support a reality TV show for new writers?

Well, plenty of reasons. For starters the contestants probably wouldn't be as pretty. Secondly no-one would be interested. How and why musicals work is only a topic of interest to a small number of people. Lots of people like musicals, only oddballs want to write them.

I think it's unfair to accuse Lord Andy of not supporting new work. If he liked a new musical I'm sure he'd be the first to put money into it. I suspect he just doesn't like a lot of the new work that's being produced. But what he's doing with Over the Rainbow is something else. Since the 70's musical theatre songs have generally been absent from the pop charts. By putting on a show where popular musical theatre songs are heard alongside popular chart songs, he's trying to prove that the showtunes can hold their own. Rather than trying to get showtunes into the charts the programme turns chart music into showtunes. That's a formula that does plenty to generate interest in musicals amongst a "modern" audience. And where there's an audience, there's a chance for new writers.

Duty done. Now don't ask me to watch Glee.

The Highbrow Kid

Big Steve is 80 years young and to celebrate BBC Radio 3 has made him composer of the week. The downloadable highlights are a treat. It's always a pleasure to hear Sondheim talk about his work: he's honest and direct, bluntly correcting the assumptions of the interviewer; remarkably unpretentious (he practically snorts at the comparison between Wagner and Into the Woods); and genuinely funny as opposed to merely witty.

But the fact that he's on Radio 3 at all says something about his reputation. Aside from Bernstein he's the only musical theatre composer to get short-listed. The Radio 3 folks aren't the only ones to single him out. His songs are played in opera houses and the Proms. Actors and writers gush at the cleverness of the man. You hear a lot of this kind of sentiment: "Oh well, I'm not really a fan of musicals but I adore Sondheim". There is a sense in which Big Steve is a little too good for the average man. He's the artistically acceptable Broadway fella; a highbrow kid in a generally lowbrow world.

I think this is his major contribution to musical theatre, to take it upmarket. Yes, he did a lot of experimental stuff but so did a lot of other Broadway writers (and more successfully too). Yet no other Broadway writer has quite the whiff of cultured elitism that surrounds Sondheim. Why so?

1. He's not Andrew Lloyd Webber. In this country, at least, he's been seen as the antidote to the megamusical.

2. His lyrics are word games. A lot of theatre critics are basically wordy-lovers who judge theatre lyrics on the cleverness of the rhymes. Big Steve can certainly deliver on this count - "moustache/just ash" from A Little Night Music springs to mind. But theatre lyrics are more than just word play. Other qualities are equally if not more important such as sound, phrasing, singability not to mention little things like, er, truth and meaning. This is not to say that Sondheim's lyrics lack these qualities only that the cleverness of a good lyric is not always as obvious as it is in a Sondheim lyric.

3. His music is sophisticated. Again, for a Broadway composer absolutely true. But at the same time he ain't Wagner and grandiose talk about leitmotifs is stretching it somewhat (hence the derisive snort). For all the sophistication he's still essentially a Broadway baby and his music is essentially, undeniably, often gloriously Broadway. I don't think Big Steve would disagree. The best part of the Radio 3 piece was picturing the interviewer's face when Sondheim cheerily and categorically stated: "I hate opera". He much prefers musicals. Has anyone else ever said such a thing on Radio 3?

4. Compared to other writers' work, his songs tend to be more intellectually appealing. They are difficult and complex. The audience has to "work" a bit harder. Critics and academics get more to chew on with a Sondheim. (This last point is, I think, an argument about thoughts over feelings, that to express a thought is a greater artistic achievement than to express a feeling. If anything I'd say it's the other way round. Thoughts can indeed be difficult and complex but they're child's play compared to emotions.)

I've always found this elevation of Sondheim to High Art as curiously inappropriate. He strikes me as a very practical man of the theatre and one of a number of equally wonderful and practical Broadway songwriters who don't seem to get the same accolades. Jerry Herman on Radio 3? I could start a campaign.

How to Write a Theatre Review

Theatre reviews must be tricky little numbers and I don't envy those who try. But it probably helps if you're not a professional theatre critic, especially when it comes to musicals. One of the most interesting reviews of Love Never Dies comes from Guardian journalist Ian Jack. After ruminating honestly on Snooty-gate and his own attitude to musicals, he gets to the eveing itself:

"I took my 17-year-old daughter. Two tickets for the stalls cost £135; a programme, £3.50; three orange juices and a small white wine, £13.80."

It struck me that the cost of a night at the theatre is hardly ever reported. Why not? Ticket prices are, in part, an indicator of value and spending £10 or £100 to see the same show would most definitely colour your view of the evening's entertainment.

"The house was sold out, but the row immediately in front of us remained strangely empty until, two or three minutes after curtain-up and the action begun, half-a-dozen big people bumped down in their seats.

Why not tell us where you're sitting and who's sitting around you? Sometimes they're more interesting than what's on stage.

"As for the rest of the evening, there was nothing to dislike about it and a lot to be enjoyed..."

In my experience that's about as much as you can say from the first viewing of a new show.

"...some of the stage effects are transfixing; all the way back on the tube we puzzled over the extra who had real legs and the torso and head of a skeleton. Amazing! How had it been done?"

Special effects, spectacle, stage gimmickry - these are often the most memorable parts. They offer an immediate, visceral and determinedly theatrical experience. It's probably more honest to talk about them than to pretend you know what's wrong with the book structure in Act II.

"By the end, quite a few in the audience were in tears, or standing on their feet and cheering, or both."

Again I'd be pretty interested in the general audience reaction, not just the critic's (especially if it conflicts with the critic's). Overall this review struck me as being one of the most interesting I've read. Rather than running through a laudry list of opinions on author, director, performers, designers and so on, this gave me a pretty good account of the evening's experience.

Of course the best review of Love Never Dies came from an audience member, quoted in Metro, who expressed concerned about the number of times the Phantom gets unmasked:

"In this one, he whips it out all the time"

That's the kind of insight that every musical producer needs.

The Snooty Show

Snooty is as snooty sounds and actress and musicals star Sheila Hancock has been sounding off a bit:

"There's an incredibly grand attitude towards musicals. I don't understand why my profession is so snooty about it. It's not just my profession, it's critics too"

And non-snooty critic Michael Billington has leapt to the defence. No, he says, criticisms of musicals are all entirely snooty-free. Let's see, non-snooty criticism number one:

"The first is what I see as the unhealthy dominance of the musical in the West End"

Hmm, perhaps a touch of snootiness here. I wonder if he's ever argued that there aren't enough musicals in the West End? Or asked why the National doesn't do Lloyd Webber shows? I suspect not. Non-snooty criticism number two:

"TV, in particular, treats the musical as the only theatrical form that matters."

Again, would he be complaining if the Beeb did wall-to-wall Pinter? Why the special pleading for non-musical theatre? Besides television's job is to make good television and I'm not convinced that theatre works particularly well on the box. Even popular musicals, it seems, have to be squeezed and sculpted into a reality TV format. Non-snooty criticism number three:

"One of my big beefs about the genre right now is that it lives almost entirely off the past...Where, I've asked a score of times, are the new musicals?"

This is perhaps the least snooty complaint. But it would be more convincing if he had a surer understanding of what counts as "new musicals". He manages to lump together Sister Act, Legally Blonde and Priscilla as being unoriginal due to the fact that they are based on films (by the same token he would have dismissed A Little Night Music) . Now it's true that Priscilla is a compilation of pop songs but the other two have entirely orginal scores. One by an multi-oscar-winning composer, no less. If that doesn't count as an interesting "new musical" you probably shouldn't be doing musical criticism.

I do suspect a lot of theatre critics have to hold their noses when they attend a musical. To be honest, I don't really blame them. I imagine most of them are smart university graduates who didn't spend their formative years reading Chekhov to have to write 2oo words on drag queens singing disco hits. On top of that, when it comes to musicals, I suspect that critics are fairly redundant. Whereas they may be able to help a struggling straight play get noticed I wonder whether they have much influence on musicals.

So, on the whole, I'm with Sheila. Musicals are simply a cut above common snootiness.

Thanks For The Melodies

In the course of a very interesting interview with Lord Andy in the Independent, Ed Seckerson makes this comment about His Lordship's tunes:

"It’s what I call the emotional memory of these melodies that give them such dramatic potency"

Hmm, "emotional memory". Interesting phrase.

It's often said that the best tunes are the most memorable ones, the ones you wind up humming involuntarily at the end of a show. There's a good reason for this. In essence melodies are memories. Unlike harmonies, melodies can only be heard one note at a time so to "hear" a complete melody is essentially to "remember" the order of a series of notes. That's why a good tune is a memorable one and vice versa.

But why the emotion? In the dramatic context Lord Andy tends to structure the story around the tunes. The tunes and their repetition give shape to the drama. In Phantom the relationship between Christine and the masked man is first expressed in the song "Angel of Music". At the melodramatic unmasking during the show's climax the same melody is heard again but because the relationship has changed and developed we hear it differently. As well as expressing the mood of the moment the restatment of the melody is also a reminder of how far Christine and the Phantom have travelled. It has "emotional memory".

It's a technique that lies somewhere between musicals and opera: more sophisticated than a simple Broadway reprise but still a long way from Wagnerian leitmotif. It's bold, upfront and fairly unsubtle but very, very effective. Lord Andy understands as well as anyone how melodies carry with them memories and emotion, even the memory of emotion. That can be a powerful tool for a theatre composer.

Makes Me Feel There Are Songs To Be Sung

One Man Global Content Provider Mark Steyn has another illuminating Song of the Week: "You Make Me Feel So Young" by Joef Myrow and Mack Gordon. You know the one:

"You Make Me Feel So Young
You make me feel 'so spring has sprung
And ev'ry time I see you grin
I'm such a happy in-
dividual"

Or at least I thought I knew it.

First off, I'd always loved that odd rhyme - "grin/in-dividual" - and the playful way each syllable of in-di-vi-du-al gets ac-cent-u-a-ted. But whoever knew that this rhyme is known as an apocopated rhyme (as in "apocope" meaning "the omission of the final sound of a word" according to my OED). I'll be listening out for those in the future.

Second off, take another look at that second line:

"You Make Me Feel So Young
You make me feel 'so spring has sprung"

That's "'so" meaning "as though". That's a nifty bit of English.

I must have heard this song scores of times but never really noticed that cunning little contraction before. Lyric-writing is often about economy. Due to the dictates of the music you only get a limited number of syllables to say what you need to say. Those linking words and phrases that help to make good flowing prose are often clumsy and cumbersome when it comes to lyrics. Contractions, abbreviations and slang are a lyricist's best friends and, when none are available, the best lyricists simply make them up - 'so they'd always existed.

Black Goes With Everything

Speaking of lyricists, reminded me of a review I wrote of James Inverne's biography of Don Black. Black has a phenomenal career and the photo album to prove it. Anyway here's the review:

Don Black is the Little Black Dress of lyricists: classy, smart and pretty much goes with anything. Reading about his life in James Inverne’s biography you get the impression that he’s classically understated too, which might explain why the only people he gets recognized by are the old dears who’ve seen him on Countdown. Whilst Don Black may not be as well-known as Lord Lloyd-Webber or Sir Tim, he has been just as successful. His name has appeared alongside some of the biggest in popular entertainment. John Barry and Quincy Jones were writing partners; Sinatra and Streisand sung his words; Michael Jackson was a family friend. Did I mention Carol Vorderman? Well, you get the idea.

Like many a great songwriter Don Black was born into an immigrant Jewish family, not on New York’s East Side but in London’s East End. His early experiences of the entertainment world involved going to see the latest Hollywood flicks and watching the variety acts at the Hackney Empire Music Hall. He started his career as a stand-up comic. The tag on his billing read, “Don Black, the Living Joke”. Unfortunately he was a flop and, as his brother quipped, tended to leave the stage to the sound of his own footsteps.

After that he worked his way up from the business end of things, eventually becoming Matt Monro’s agent. It was only at this point that Black really got going as a lyricist, supplying the words for some of Monro’s hits. He struck gold in Hollywood with title songs for movies like Diamonds are Forever and Born Free (for which he became the first British songwriter to win an Oscar). As Monro’s career went the way of the bottle, Black’s contInued to thrive. He turned to musical theatre and came up trumps again, providing lyrics to a range of shows, from the playful razzmatazz of Billy to the grandiose comic-tragedy of Sunset Boulevard.

James Inverne manages to fill out the biographical outline with some great showbiz stories. In fact at times he seems determined to name-drop the entire contents of Who’s Who on Black’s behalf. But all the famous names do underline Black’s remarkable ability to collaborate with all kinds of people. There aren’t many other lyricists who could have taken on an assignment like Bombay Dreams, working alongside the Bollywood composer A.R.Rahman. On paper, they make the oddest of odd couples: Black, the old pro with a Tin Pan Alley work ethic and Rahman, a deeply spiritual and devout Muslim. If things weren’t going well Rahman would walk out of a writing session to pray to Allah for inspiration. When Black got stuck, he’d nip down the local curry house and scan the menu (“I’ve already written ‘its my chapati and I’ll cry if I want to’”). But somehow the partnership worked and produced a highly original West End score.

If there is a criticism of this biography it’s that sometimes the backstage drama overshadows the drama in the lyrics. With so many great songs to choose from, there’s plenty to gain from a little analysis. Take Tell Me on a Sunday, which is one of Black’s best works. It’s full of those observational truths that say an awful lot without saying much at all. There’s the beautifully plaintive “Nothing Like It Ever Was”, where the heroine starts an affair with a married man:

Married man,
Always looking at your watch.
I wanted to
Spend more time than twelve ‘til two
Loving you.

You can immediately picture the scene: a furtive lunchtime meeting with one eye on the clock, the married man sneaking back to the office in time for the sake of keeping up appearances. It’s a whole story in an anecdote and a model in the art of compression. And, where most lyricists would struggle with anything other than a regular 4/4 beat, Black manages to rest his words effortlessly on an awkward 5/8 time signature.

It’s that kind of easy-going artiness, coupled with a very British sense of modesty, that’s kept Don Black at the top of the songwriting game for over four decades. This biography is a celebratory reminder that Black never really goes out of style.

Three Lyricists for the Price of One

The new title song from Love Never Dies has been revealed. Only it's not that new.

I first remember hearing this one from Lord Andy's 50th Birthday Bash sung by Kiri "The Kiwi" te Kanawa. Then part of it turned up in The Beautiful Game. Now it's back for Love Never Dies. Obviously Lord Andy is pretty keen on it and I don't blame him. It's a lovely broad melody, expansive and romantic but still accessible. This is very much his territory.

It also offers a rare opportuniy to see what three different lyricists did with the same 8 bars of melody. So in chronological order, first up is Don Black with "The Heart is Slow to Learn":

I never loved
As I have loved you
Why is love cruel? I wish I knew
Say what you will
It doesn't matter
Until I die there's only you

Then Ben Elton has a crack with "Our Kind of Love":

Our kind of love
Our kind of passion
Burns with a heat that's hard to bear
It's not a game
No fad or fashion
My kind of love's for those who dare

I must be strong
I must be bolder
Cling to my dream and never tire
Each love denied
Leaves people colder
New love rekindles every fire

I am in love
No-one can blame me
Such is my story and my fate
My kind of love
Will never shame me
My love is stronger than their hate

All kinds of love
Bring us together
Causing the broken hearts to mend
People must love
Now and forever
There's only one love in the end

And finally Glenn Slater, lyricist of Love Never Dies, puts in his t'pennies worth:

Love never dies
Love never falters
Once it has spoken love is yours
Love never fades
Love never alters
Hearts may get broken, love endures

Love never dies
Love will continue
Love keeps on beating when your gone
Love never dies
Once it is in you
Life may be fleeting, love lives on

Now these lyrics were written for different occassions. Black's were for a one-off performance (it's possible he was an early lyricist on the Phantom sequel but I don't really know). As such it's a solid professional job and has by far the best title. But it also has an understandably, given the lack of context, wishy-washy sentiment ("Why is love cruel? I wish I knew").

Elton's, on the other hand, have a more specific context. It's sung by a young Irish girl giddy in love with her new boyfriend and George Best's thighs. As such it's none too convincing. Much better is when it's reprised at the end of Beautiful Game and sung with an angry bitterness as all that youthful hope has slowly turned to dust.

Slater's lyrics are defiantly romantic which suit the feel of the music remarkably well. Of course, for this to be dramatically pertinent, as with Beautiful Game, it should be in a situation where love really has died. That way the defiance is intensified. It'll be interesting to see where the song is placed in the stage show.

In technical terms I would say that the double rhyme scheme (ABAB) in Elton's (passion/fashion) and Slater's (falters/alters) lyrics isn't really necessary. Yes, the tune suggests a similar scheme but the lyrical phrases are so short that an extra rhyme seems unecesssarily neat. Neatness is not what this melody is about. I'm with Black's lyric on this.

On the other hand the repetition is important. The first four notes of the tune with its dramatic ocatave drop forms a musical phrase. This is then repeated up a tone. So the lyric of the first phrase needs to express a thought and then repeat and intensify that thought with the second phrase. That's what Slater does beautifully in his first verse ("Love never dies/Love never falters") and then, when a new bit of tune comes in he changes the pattern ("Once it has spoken, love is yours"). The music and words are working in synch. Unfortunately he breaks the pattern in the second verse. The first and second lines use the repetition ("Love never dies/Love will continue") but then the third line, following the new musical phrase, should start with something new but instead makes another statement beginning with "Love" ("love keeps on beating when you're gone"). The pattern is broken again on the next two lines by producing one sentence over the two repeated musical phrases ("Love never dies/Once it is in you").

This kind of slow, expansive tune is tricky to fit words around. In fact all the lyrical examples have bits where the stresses of the words don't quite follow those of the music (as in "Peo-ple must love" with the "ple" getting the musical emphasis). On top of that the lyricist can't out-do the composer with broad brush emotion. "Until I die there's only you" is an emotional statement that seems overcooked, even slightly hysterical. Music generally conveys this kind of emotion more easily than lyrics.

The point is that lyric-writing is a different way of using words. On a technical level it's not about complex thought, grammar and sentence structure; it's about rhythm, sounds and syllables. That's what makes it a uniquely difficult task. Not only that, but the composer can get multiple verses and, in this case, multiple songs out of the same 8 bars of music. The lyricist has to find different words each time. It's definitely the fag end of the bargain.

It may be a thankless task but fortunately there are at least three brave souls willing to try. God bless 'em, every one.

How to Tell You It's Not True

With formerly spicy Mel C wowing audiences in the London cast of Blood Brothers, this seemed like a good opportunity for a little reflective review on the show. So here it is:

The book’s the thing. If that Funny Boy from Denmark had ever gotten around to writing a musical I’m sure he would have agreed. With musicals, people tend to get it backwards. People think that the hardest job must be the composer’s because writing music is a special skill. Lyric-writing is second because that’s all to do with writing rhymes. But the book must be the easiest because that’s just the talking bits. Actually it should be the other way around. The book is by far the most important part of any musical. The only trouble is that there are so few good ‘uns. Blood Brothers may not have a spectacular set or a movie tie-in or a symphonic score or even a happy ending. But it does have a terrific book and that’s more than enough.

Willy Russell had a wonderful idea for a story. Twin brothers are separated at birth and one is brought up working class, the other middle class. By chance they become best friends (“blood brothers”) in childhood. But their lives slowly drift apart until one fateful day they learn the truth about themselves. It's a great idea full of dramatic potential - mothers and sons, rites of passage, social divides - all good, juicy stuff. So what's the problem? Well, it's also absurd and relies on a series of implausible circumstances. Like a woman's husband conveniently being away “on business” for nine months so that she can fake a pregnancy with a cushion up her jumper. Like the posh "mother" moving home and the real working-class mother getting re-housed by the council in exactly the same area. Like the working-class son ending up being employed by and subsequently laid off by his posh “father”. The contrivances go on. So this is Willy Russell’s problem: great dramatic idea but laughably implausible storyline.

How does he solve this problem? Well he pretty much sorts it out in the first few words:

“So did y’ hear the story of the Johnstone twins?
As like each other as two new pins,
Of one womb born, on the self same day,
How one was kept and one given away?”

That’s the Narrator speaking. Usually shoehorning a narrator into your drama is a shorthand way of telling the story. They keep the audience up-to-date with the who’s who and what’s what. But not this Narrator. In fact, as far as storytelling goes, that opening plot summary is about the only thing this Narrator actually does. After that he only pops up to play bit parts or sing a little fatalistic commentary every now and then in a moderately rocky style (“You know the devil’s got your number”). The point is that The Narrator isn’t there to narrate; he’s really there to remind us that it’s a narrative. Indeed that becomes a kind of repeated theme of the whole piece:

"Tell me it’s not true
Say it’s just a story"

Exactly so. Blood Brothers is just a story, a kind of modern-day folk tale. You can hear it in the language of those opening lines. Yes, it’s just a story so, yes, there will plot contrivances but that’s kind of the point, so please go with it. The Narrator provides a smart and bold solution to the problem of an implausible narrative. In fact turning your biggest problem into a prominent feature is really quite brilliant. Not the sort of brilliance that will get noticed in the way that a beautiful melody or clever couplet would but, in the final analysis, far more important than either of those things.

Sometimes Blood Brothers is described as a play with music as opposed to a musical, as if the songs are incidental. Maybe that’s because the story is very strong and, to some ears, the songs are a bit basic. It’s true that Willy Russell is no Lionel Bart but, as a dramatic songwriter, he’s still very effective. Here’s a seven-year-old boy who’s bored out of his brain because his best friend has left and he’s got no-one else to play with:

“No kids out on the street today,
You could be living on the moon.
Maybe everybody’s packed their bags and moved away,
Gonna be a long, long, lo-o-o-ong
Sunday Afternoon.”

The music is slow and ponderous. You can feel the boy’s boredom being stretched out in those repeated “longs” and that melisma on the final one, like a little musical yawn, is a perfect bit of characterisation through song. This isn’t flashy but, as musical writing goes, the music and lyrics are perfectly in tune with the dramatic moment. That’s a rare achievement in most musicals.

In the end Blood Brothers is a drama told through song; take the songs away and you’d have a less effective drama. That not only makes it a musical but a great one at that. It’s 21 years and counting in the West End and its simple but flexible staging will, I’m sure, guarantee it a long life in schools and am-dram clubs up and down the country. Musical or otherwise, it seems there’s always an audience for a family tragedy. Just ask Hamlet.

Father and Son Blonde-ing Experience

I admire producer Sonia Friedman's promotional chutzpah ("Beatlemania"?) but can this really be true? It would seem that the London production of Legally Blonde - the Musical is reaching the audience parts that Broadway couldn't:

"(The Broadway production) failed to find the people it looks like we are finding – the couples, the groups, the granny taking her granddaughter, the father taking his son"

The father taking his son? Makes a change from beer drinking and fishing trips, I suppose.

On the State of the British Musical (and Other Pressing Issues)

More catching up to do.

So to this Michael Billington review of a musical version of The Lady or the Tiger. Unfortunately he doesn't seem to have much time for the piece and, in the last paragraph, begins ruminating more generally on the "melancholy" state of the British musical:

"Andrew Lloyd Webber effortlessly dominates the scene. But who else is there? Howard Goodall tapped into the British choral tradition in The Hired Man but has never capitalised on that success. Stiles and Drewe wrote popular children's piece Honk!, but have yet to achieve an adult breakthrough. Whether because of economics, lack of encouragement or failure of ambition, the British musical seems a languishing, lacklustre affair."

Now I'm not altogether in disagreement with Mr. Billington. But a few quibbles:

1. Lord Andy may dominate the scene but, in recent years, it's more for his role as Graham Norton's sidekick than for his musicals. I don't know the exact financial figures but I do know that none of his recent shows made it to Broadway. And Sunset Boulevard and Aspects of Love, good works both, were never solid gold smashes in the way that Phantom of the Opera was. But that goes back to 1986.

2. Far from not capitalising on The Hired Man, the splendid Howard Goodall has written plenty more musicals. They just haven't been that successful. Then again he's always seems a wee bit indifferent about the form.

3. I'd say that Stiles and Drewe have indeed had a major breakthrough by writing half the score for Mary Poppins. (And by the way, why does something need to be "adult" to be considered a breakthrough?).

4. He didn't mention Billy Elliot.

5. If I were to take a fairly unsubstantiated guess I'd say there are probably more talented and skilled actors, singers, dancers, choreographers, stage managers and lighting designers working in musical theatre today than ever before. That may be due to all those jukebox musicals and reality TV shows but they hardly make the scene look "languishing" or "lacklustre".

And yet, and yet. There is a sense in which the hit shows, let alone the good ones, are few and far between. I can't really disagree but has it ever been any different? Even in the Mackintosh/Lloyd Webber days the hits were a trickle compared to the stream of flops. Successful musicals are always the exception. I've said it before and I say it again: nobody really, truly knows how musicals work. Not even Mr. Billington.

A Novello Fellow?

It's catch-up time.

So better late than never I've been listening to Comedy Thos over at Musical Talk. Fascinating episode, well worth a listen. He's talking about Ivor Novello and comes up with this thought:

"Andrew Lloyd Webber is, in some ways, the modern operettist"

The specific pitch here is that, had Novello lived a little longer and continued his success into the 1960s, we would see a much clearer line from him to Andrew Lloyd Webber. Instead the Broadway shows took over and the British operetta tradition was broken. But there is a tradition there if you only join the dots.

Well I'm not so sure. First of all Lord Andy doesn't usually cite Novello as any kind of influence. Yes there are lush melodies but, in truth, his music lies far from Novello's. It lies in a strange and lonely place somewhere between Richard Rogers, Puccini and the Everly Brothers. For all the accusations that Lloyd Webber's music sounds like other people's, nobody else's music tends to sound like his.

OK but what about form and content? The romance, the spectacle, the earnest lack of any funny dialogue? Surely that's operetta-ish? Yes it is, but that's putting too much on Phantom of the Opera. Lord Andy has written in a whole variety of forms - album musical, dance musical, song cycle, roller skate-orama musical - as if he was making it up as he went along. I think he was.

The main point about Lord Andy is not that he continued any kind of British operetta tradition but that he broke from the dominant Broadway tradition. Less a Novello fellow and more an antidote to Jerry Herman.