Thinking back a bit, in November we were treated to two TV shows: Channel 4's series The Sound of Musicals and the Beeb's one-off Broadway Musicals - a Jewish Legacy.
The former was about current musicals in the West End, the latter about old musicals on Broadway.
The Sound of Musicals dealt mostly with revivals and jukebox shows and, as such, focussed on directors, producers and performers. No writers. That's remarkable. Musicals are primarily stories through song. You would think that the writers of those songs would be at the centre of any look at the current state of musicals.
Of course there is a reason. Even if the producers wanted to interview the songwriters of the featured shows, then they would have found it difficult. Most - Irving Berlin, Michael Jackson - were dead. And when they did find a real live theatre composer to talk to in the form of Marc Shaiman (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) they duly gave him two precious seconds to expound his thoughts on the chubby kid playing Augustus Gloop. Apparently he's quite good.
Meanwhile Shaiman also appeared on Broadway Musicals - a Jewish Legacy where he was given a bit longer to demonstrate the differences between minor scales, blues scales and Jewish scales (from memory, the Jewish scale is somewhere between the two). And he was not the token writer. The programme was full of writers, mostly Jewish. Even the Episcopalian Cole Porter sounded Jewish.
I think the lesson is clear. A musical theatre scene that relies on its directors, producers and performers will soon run out of things to sing about. The West End needs writers. And Jews.
Tuesday 31 December 2013
Things Established About Stephen Ward Musical
"You'll be wondering what I'm doing here
Stuck between Hitler and the acid-bath murderer
Let me warn you, it's the consequence
If you get up the nose of the Establishment
If you give them what they're looking for
They'll be grateful, they'll be awfully nice
But if you should step across the line
You'll become a Human Sacrifice"
I do love a searing satire on the hypocrisies of the Establishment. I'm just not sure that I'd hire these fellas to deliver it:
Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber
Sir Richard Eyre
Christopher Hampton CBE
Don Black OBE
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