A Little Cavilling

"So finally, an arts council grant that surely nobody can cavil...

Oh, I don't know. When it comes to arts funding, I'm always game.

"...an award given to develop new musical writing"

This is news from the Guardian that Perfect Pitch Musicals is to receive a £188,860 from the Arts Council.

"So why is help needed? Mainly because the musicals seen in our theatres today are usually not original works - and rarely British in origin."

Agreed. Although it may be more interesting to ask might be why the old, foreign stuff is more popular. Just a thought.

"If I use just West End shows to illustrate this point, we see they are either revivals of American classics – Carousel, The King and I – or, if they were written more recently, based on films, such as The Lion King, Sister Act and Billy Elliot."

Well now, hold up there. Granted, the songs for The Lion King were susbstantially transplanted from the film, but Sister Act has an entirely original score. And Billy Elliot had no singing at all in the film. If you're not counting that as "original" then you're setting the bar very high. Almost all successful musicals are adaptations of something or other - a book, a play, a film - but they're still original musicals.

Now, about being "British in origin"? That's a tougher cookie, sorry, biscuit. Billy Elliot certainly is. We Will Rock You is (although not an original score). Mamma Mia? Sort of - the production is but the songs are Swedish. It quickly gets complicated.

Even more complicated is the question of what a British musical sounds like. What makes a song distinctively British? Most new British musicals sound American. They're either a bit Sondheim-ish or Broadway-ish or American pop parody-ish. The simple reason is that musical theatre's vernacular and, more broadly, popular song's vernacular is still and always has been essentially American. Finding a genuinely original British voice may take a lot more than a bit of arts funding.

End of cavil.