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.