Lloyd Webber's Next Musical

[246015]

It looks like Lloyd-Webber's Profumo Affair musical is definitely happening.


From BBC News:

"Once the Superstar search is over, Lord Lloyd-Webber will take "time off" to write his next musical - his first since 2010's Love Never Dies.

"I'm pleased that I've found a subject that I want to write now," he admitted.

That subject is a the life and death of Stephen Ward, the London osteopath who was linked to the Profumo scandal in the 1960s.

Conservative War Minister John Profumo was forced to resign from the Cabinet in 1963 for lying to the House of Commons over his affair with Christine Keeler.

His brief affair with Ms Keeler had begun after he was introduced to her by Ward at Lord Astor's Cliveden country estate in Berkshire in July 1961. Ward took an overdose of tablets and died three days after being found guilty of living on immoral earnings.

"It's not - as people will immediately say - a musical about the Profumo Affair and Christine Keeler," Lord Lloyd-Webber explained.

"It's about the life of this man - and how a man who was probably the most popular, most sought after, most urbane - a figure who you really wanted to meet if you were in London - ended up as a waxwork in the chamber of horrors in Blackpool.

"He was the fall guy for what happened in a whole series of events that spun out of control... but the more you look at the story the more it's quite clear that a lot of things that were alleged to have happened probably didn't happen."

He added: "It's also very much about how both the press and media put pressure on these very young girls to say things that weren't necessarily true.

"It's an incredibly interesting subject for today, and it's right at that time when everything was changing, the old Britain was going and The Beatles were just happening.""


Read the whole article here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18117025

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Yawn!
Wish he had kept on track to do a huge version of 'A Star Is Born'

[Phantom of London]

Andrew Lloyd Webber, wanted to do 'The Master and the Margarita' but this was shelved when Andrews friend Steve Pimlott died at a young age, Andrew was convinced he was the only person who could direct this, din't know why though?

[ClapYo'Hands]

I wish we didn't have to read about every aspect of his life in the news. I mean, I appreciate it but this is exactly when people decide it's going to be awful and attempt to derail all his projects.

[CATSNYrevival]

I still wish he would have gone forward with The Master and Margarita.

[bob8rich]

I thought his next musical was going to be a sequel to Jesus Christ Superstar "Jesus Never Dies". (And the title song will be the music of Don't Cry For Me, Argentina with new lyrics by Glenn Slater.)

[246015]

I understand what you mean. People seem to be very negative where ALW is concerned. While I don't like all of his stuff ("Cats", "Starlight Express" and "Aspects of Love" instantly spring to mind), I love most of it, with "Love Never Dies" actually being not only my favourite Lloyd Webber score but also one of my favourite musical theatre scores period. I suppose it is the yearning romanticism of his music as well as the beautiful orchestrations that his scores always seem to have that most appeals to me.

I look forward to the new musical whenever we get to see it. An Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is always an event and seems to get lots of news coverage. I also look forward to hearing how he approaches the subject matter musically.

[ClapYo'Hands]

He really does have an extraordinary knack for tapping directly into our emotions in an extreme way!

[lotiloti]

Will someone, please take away his pens!

[devonian.t]

I'd forgotten all about the sad loss of Steven Pimlott.

With Complicite have just done 'M & M' I can't imagine ALW getting to grips with it. It's quite hard to adapt.

[DeNada]

I'm actually glad that ALW's every movement is in the news. At least we have one musical theatre composer in the country who is famous enough to actually generate major news articles and keep the "artform" in the public awareness as something that people create, rather than just appearing magically formed.

With that said... not sure what ALW will achieve that A Model Girl at Greenwich didn't a few years ago (and that, alas, didn't achieve much). It's a story that fits better with his old poppier musical idiom rather than the goth romanticism he has indulged in in recent years.

[Jonwo]

I'm not sure if it'll work but it'll be interesting how it turns out. The Master and Margarita would have been interesting just from the visual point of view.

[246015]

"SUNSET BOULEVARD Collaborators Don Black and Christopher Hampton Join Andrew Lloyd Webber's New Profumo Affair Musical Project

...Now that Wizard is on its feet again on this side of the ocean and the Superstar tour is on its way, Lloyd Webber is anxious to leave TV celebrity behind for a while and get back behind the piano. Undaunted by recent stumbles, he’s started work on a Cold War musical based on the Profumo Affair, which led to the collapse of Britain’s Conservative Macmillan government in 1963. It will reunite him with Don Black and Dangerous Liaisons playwright Christopher Hampton, his collaborators on SUNSET BOULEVARD..."


Read the original, full article here:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/theatre-and-performance/lloyd-webber-on-the-wizard-of-oz-over-the-rainbow-and-avril-lavigne/article6538412/

Read the report from Broadwayworld:

http://broadwayworld.com/article/SUNSET-BOULEVARD-Collaborators-Don-Black-and-Christopher-Hampton-Join-Andrew-Lloyd-Webbers-New-Profumo-Affair-Musical-Project-20121219

[philitalia]

I hope Profumo won't be a stinker

I think the collaboration with Black/Hampton sounds promising.

[Phantom of London]

Been a long timw since this collabration Andrew Lloyd Webber has partnered with Jim Steinman, Ben Elton, David Zippel and Glenn Slater since, O wonder what the logic was with going with two Lyricist is?

[Scripps2]

I think Black is writing the lyrics and Hampton the book.

Which should at least mean they will be half-decent.

[Owen22]

Unfortunately the once talented Don Black has become an incredibly lazy lyricist. And has been for awhile. He obviously doesn't care, thinks "good enough" is the same as "good". However, Slater's lyrics for "Love" aren't any better and he has (had) been hailed as a wunderkind.

Lloyd-Webber still has "it" however. He just has to shut up and let the book writer and director take control. He has so little theatrical sense dramaturgically (oddly his scores are so full of character and theatre...) he ruins his shows by trying to direct and write their book (unofficially). Hopefully these two along with a strong director will keep Andrew in his place, the place he works the best, at his piano.

[Phantom of London]

Where Owen I 100% disagree on your first paragraph, a lot of people in theatrical circles hailed Bonnie and Clyde, but I 100% agree with your second paragraph, Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of the greatest composers of all time, he is a 100% lousy and failed theatre impresario. I don't think he has had a hit since The Phantom of the Opera.

[Phantom of London]

Where Owen I 100% disagree on your first paragraph, a lot of people in theatrical circles hailed Bonnie and Clyde, but I 100% agree with your second paragraph, Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of the greatest composers of all time, he is a 100% lousy and failed theatre impresario. I don't think he has had a hit since The Phantom of the Opera.

[Owen22]

A good portion of the critics disliked Bonnie and Clyde (and rightfully so!) putting a lot of the blame on Black. I'm not exactly sure which "theatrical circles" you're referring to (its obviously not the critics or ticket-buying public), but here in the states, at least around playwrights and musical theatre songwriters, he's often referred to as "Don Hack".

[The Scorpion]

Where Owen I 100% disagree on your first paragraph, a lot of people in theatrical circles hailed Bonnie and Clyde, but I 100% agree with your second paragraph, Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of the greatest composers of all time, he is a 100% lousy and failed theatre impresario. I don't think he has had a hit since The Phantom of the Opera.

He has in London, but not on Broadway. Sunset would have been a hit in the technical sense of recouping had the production costs not been so ridiculously exorbitant. And for me, and for quite a few others I know, that was the last good thing he did.

Then, unfortunately, he went power crazy, fired anyone decent from RUG and surrounded himself with yes men. I thought it absolutely ridiculous that he blamed the failure on Love Never Dies in a recent interview on him being the composer and the producer...huh?? Surely if that was a lesson to be learned, it should have been learned during Sunset, which was a PR disaster. Anyway, Love was the Lord at his worst and the result of a bad idea gone out of control thanks to his yes men and deserves to be quickly forgotten about. I notice he's stopped saying in every press interview that it will go to Broadway. Thank God he's got over the fact it won't.

I really don't think he'll get another hit until he learns that RUG is rotten to the core and sticks to the composing only. But I don't think that's going to happen.

I really love Phantom, Evita and Sunset (his three best, IMHO) and very much enjoy Superstar and Aspects, but he's his own worst enemy and I've lost of respect for him over the years. He treats his collaborators terribly, alienates people, overhypes his projects, tries to rewrite history to suit him and is too self-indulgent and never assigns blame to himself when he ought to. He's a quintessential egotist IMHO and while he could get away with it perhaps in his heyday in the 80s, he can't afford to now.

[Stewart A]

Whether or not people are fans of ALW and his music nobody can dispute his major contribution to musical theatre in the West End, Broadway, and around the world for that matter, in the last 40 years. ALW and Cameron Mackintosh totally re-invented musical theatre in the 70s and especially the 80s. They put British musicals back on the Broadway stage after a long absence and brought a lot of people into theatres and a lot of money into the business. I doubt musical theatre would be where it is today without them.

Maybe ALW lost his touch in the 90s but up until then he had one long runner after another - JCS ran for 8 years, Evita for 8 years, Cats for 21 years, Starlight Express for 17 years and Phantom still going after 26 years. No other composer has achieved anywhere near this kind of record. Even if his shows after Phantom didn't achieve the same level of success ALW was at least still producing original musicals and giving us something else to choose from other than jukebox musicals. He has always had at least one show running on the London and Broadway stage in the last 30 years and his shows are always being revived and touring.

ALW is the most prolific composer this country has ever had and is worth an estimated £750 million so if that makes him a failure then what the hell is a success??

[Phantom of London]

I said earlier Andrew is one of the greatest composers of all time, but a 100% rotten impresario, he even ****ed up the film The Phantom of the Opera, the highest grossing musical of all time.

In the 80's when people had money and making money came so easy to The Lord, with virtually everything he touched turned to gold, with shows racking the money both in London and New York, then another stack of cash was made from tours CD's greatest hit CD's and licensing.

Then The Lord become greedy and arrogant and realized it was his name was the brand that everyone wanted? In turn firing all his hanger ons and went it alone in the 90's surely the royalty checks were pouring in. If that failed he could resort to his last great card up his sleeve 'Phantom of the Opera II'.

[Stewart A]

Although I quite enjoyed Love Neves Dies and thought it was a good score I think it failed for several reasons. I think it happened way too late - POTO opened in 1986 and LND didn't open until 2010 but was meant to be set 10 years after POTO ends. I don't think a sequel to POTO was needed as the story ended when Christine went off with Raoul and Phantom disappeared so we didn't need to know what happened next and LND sort of shattered the illusion of happy ever after. The story of LND I thought was a bit shallow silly and not a realistic follow up, but in Ben Elton's hands what more could we expect, and the ending of Meg accidentally killing Christine was totally unbelievable. I think by the time LND came around audiences just weren't interested enough and the face of musical theatre had changed. Had LND happened sooner and had a believable book then I think it could have done much better.

[dgjbear]

I actually prefer Love never Dies to Phantom. But he isn't a great producer and should use other people. Cameron Mackintosh also hasn't had a significant hit either since Miss Saigon, but when you have some of the biggest money makers in you portfolio, everyone will judge new stuff against those and not look at the merits of new material. I would love to see ALW work again with Tim Rice.

[The Scorpion]

Even on its own merits, I think Love Never Dies is shockingly poor. So much recycled music (I'm not just talking about the title song), by far the worst lyrics ALW's ever received and a plotline from hell. And you have to see it in connection with Phantom because it brands itself as a sequel, and as a sequel it's an outright failure. The plotline is unbelievable, the characters unrecognisable and there are far too many continuity errors. It might have fared better with completely separate characters who had nothing to do with Phantom. And generally it's a good idea to keep Ben Elton away from any musical that you want to be good.

Then The Lord become greedy and arrogant and realized it was his name was the brand that everyone wanted? In turn firing all his hanger ons and went it alone in the 90's surely the royalty checks were pouring in. If that failed he could resort to his last great card up his sleeve 'Phantom of the Opera II'.

The thing is, some of the "hangers on" in the early 80s were genuinely talented people who helped RUG do very well (Biddy Hayward, Brian Brolly etc). But ALW is an incredibly insecure man and became paranoid and so fired them all, and surrounded himself with people who would just agree with his every whim. It's artistic suicide. And it's incredibly sad. Still, I guess we should be grateful for the good things we got out of him. It's a shame he doesn't take a backseat these days rather than continuously put out dreck and cheapen his earlier shows (as he has done with Phantom and Superstar), but I guess that's the product of his workaholism and complete lack of direction.