The Olivier Awards are always an exciting time for the theatre community and there was great anticipation as ITV were showing highlights of the award ceremony. Perhaps best not to discuss how ineffective these highlights were, with poor editing that cut performances and speeches. Instead I want to focus on some of the musicals that were nominated and the eventual winners, as there were a few surprises.

I must admit I didn’t know the nominations for Best New Musical beforehand so was beyond surprised to hear that Top Hat was the winner. What saddened me was that three of the four nominees can hardly be called ‘new’ as the songs are all well-known: Top Hat is based on a film from 1935! The Bodyguard is also based on a film and the songs of Whitney Houston, whilst Soul Sister revolves around the music of Tina Turner. So I think most of the theatre community had high hopes for the only original show nominated: Loserville. It may have had its short run against it, but the theatre world had a lot of respect for what it was attempting as a young show – but sadly it wasn’t to be.

At least we can expect better competition next year which will no doubt include The Book of Mormon (which missed out on being eligible this year), Once and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the list of nominees. So can we just put it down to being a bad year?

However, for all the controversy of the Best New Musical, the BBC Radio 2 Audience Award certainly warmed my heart. The nominees were Billy Elliot, Wicked, The Phantom of the Opera and Matilda. Let’s be honest, after its domination of the Olivier Awards 2012 I was convinced the prize would go to Matilda, and I would have pinned Billy Elliot as the underdog after Phantom and Wicked, so a big grin appeared on my face when it was announced as the winner. The joy of audience awards is that people are getting their say on what they class as a worthy winner, so for a show that is now eight years old to win is very encouraging. Perhaps it’s due to a resurgence of relevance after the death of Margaret Thatcher, but I don’t want to detract from the show itself as I love the score (much fun can be had singing ‘Electricity’ around the house complete with Geordie accent).

It gets hard to defend musical theatre when shows with 70-year-old songs are winning awards for new shows, but when a musical like Billy Elliot wins the audience award, or indeed Sondheim’s masterpiece Sweeney Todd which won Best Revival, Best Actor and Best Actress, it makes the defence easier. As I said before, I just look forward to the Olivier Awards 2014 as I believe we will have a tougher competition on our hands – and who knows what will win the Audience Award next year!

Image: Billy Elliot, Victoria Palace; Victoria, London

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My title for this blog comes from a speech by George Asprey at the start of a performance of The Lion King on 14 April 2013 in London. Fans of the show will know that the actor portraying Scar doesn’t usually give a speech prior to the opening number, but this performance was special. This particular performance had an audience of people on the autistic spectrum; a mother shared her account of their trip and it’s very touching.

I’d like to share my experience of attending a musical with someone who has special needs, as it can be easy for us to forget how hard a theatre trip can be for some people. My eldest sister (R) has Downs Syndrome and autism, so I know how challenging a simple trip outside the house can be for someone who doesn’t like loud noises or new people. Often a trip to a theatre, where we’re taught to be quiet but we’re then blasted with loud music, can be a scary place for someone with autism.

Last year, our other sister and I  took R to see the touring production of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; luckily we had grown up with the Donny Osmond video and my sister had seen it before on stage. It’s perhaps the only time I’ve been glad a show hasn’t changed through its various tours, as seeing the same show on stage as on video really helped my sister. Due to the autism, R shouted at innocent by-standers to get out of her way and told them to go away – you would too if you were only 4 foot 7 and surrounded by very tall people in a small space. The whole trip was planned like a military mission, right down to bringing our own teaspoon to eat the ice cream with in the interval, as those spatulas are hard to use even when you have good co-ordination.

However once the show started my sister lit up with the spectacle of it all and hearing the songs we’ve grown up singing. As with any young woman, R was also extremely interested in the half naked men and kept craning her head to get a better look. She was very taken with Keith Jack as Joseph, to the point that at the start of Act 2 when the narrator and children were singing, she turned and asked me where Joseph was. It was a very funny moment as her speech is very limited, but she pushed through and found the words because she so wanted to hear and see Keith again. The way her face was nearly bursting with happiness during the finale made up for any bad moments, and I can’t thank the cast enough as they kept trying to engage with her by waving and singing to her.

Of course what is staggering, is that it wasn’t even an autism friendly performance, so I can only imagine the happiness felt by the families at The Lion King who were catered for as they were. I hope other West End shows and tours have plans to follow in the same way.

Image: Lyceum Theatre – Wellington Street, London – The Lion King

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Jason Robert Brown is a composer who is popular amongst young performers. His shows may not be big hits but he is an innovator and young performers have latched on to his work. Brown also sums up how we young folk can often see musical theatre – myself included – “People of my generation think of musical theatre as being a fuddy-duddy and corny art form. I don’t think they even think of it as an art form.” This is perhaps true as most of us involved with A Younger Theatre are in our mid-twenties or younger so have grown up with shows such as Phantom of the Opera and Cats dominating the London stages. There have been a few productions in recent years that have started to shift the target audience of new work towards younger people and who are not afraid to rock the boat – who can forget the Jerry Springer: The Opera debacle? Avenue Q is a naughty Sesame Street with hilarious songs such as ‘The Internet is for Porn’ and whilst most adults will find a song about the proliferation of internet porn hilarious it is probably the younger generations who have grown up with the internet and are very tech savvy who will find it the most humorous. Loserville, which closed at the start of this year, was also fascinating as a new musical theatre piece created by young people, starring young people and pretty much for young people.

This year’s big story is of course The Book of Mormon. The show has had amazing success in America and it has finally opened here in London, breaking advance ticket sales records.  It is made by the creators of South Park and one of the composers of Avenue Q, this tells you that audience members of a nervous disposition may not enjoy this show (my mum has already refused point blank to see it after seeing a clip on the BBC’s Culture Show); to be honest I wasn’t sure I would like it as I have never been a fan of South Park. Yet listening to the soundtrack has me in stitches every time especially with its lampooning of musical theatre itself. Yet it does it out of love and the same is true of its treatments of Mormons, it isn’t mocking any the religion out of malice.

Having grown up with exposure to controversial comedians and play-it-safe musicals, it is refreshing to be able to go sit in a theatre and here them singing the C-word or making fun of The Lion King and other musicals. Love it or hate it, The Book of Mormon is a young show and it makes me very excited for the future of musical theatre.

Photo: Gavin Creel as Elder Price in The Book of Mormon. Photo (c) Joan Marcus.

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A Chorus Line makes a triumphant return to the West End for the first time since it premiered in the UK in the late seventies, which ties in with research I have been carrying out as part of my postgraduate studies. Until now, I had failed to realise through all my previous studies into musical theatre just what a sensation this show really was, and how special its creation was compared with other shows.

Backstage musicals are nothing new, with shows such as Showboat, Kiss Me Kate, Phantom of the Opera, The Producers and 42nd Street popular and enduring. Also worth noting is how most singers enjoy belting out A Chorus Line anthem ‘What I Did For Love’, and who could forget the finale of lines of gold sequin-clad dancers toting top hats and high-kicking? But it is how A Chorus Line came into being that makes it unique. Director/choreographer Michael Bennett first gathered a group of dancers one night in 1974 and, with a reel-to-reel recorder, documented their lives and stories regarding dance.

These performers likened the various sessions to group therapy with Bennett consoling them as they shared the good and bad of their lives. Their stories were then appropriated into the book of the musical and punctuated with memorable songs. Some of the performers they found themselves acting out fictionalised versions of their own lives, a process they called “joyful pain”. For the first time, audiences were getting an unashamed telling of what goes into the making of a show and its chorus, and just how unforgiving and brutal the world in which these dancers were operating could be. Bennett furthered this connection between performer and audience through the set design, which included mirrors reflecting the audience so they could feel included in the journey.

Prior to this show, musicals were usually created by the book-writer and composer with influences by other members of the creative team. The primary source, if not an original story, was usually a literary text such as a novel or play which was adapted for the musical stage. A musical was not based on the chorus and definitely did not include their actual words, a fact fully appreciated by original cast members such as Baayork Lee (original Connie) who recently told critic Mark Shenton: “Michael Bennett gave me a voice. Until then, dancers didn’t speak or ask questions — we did what we were told.” Dance had started to gain more importance within musical theatre with Agnes De Mille’s work in Oklahoma! and Jereome Robbin’s choreography in West Side Story, but it was A Chorus Line that helped future shows such as Cats find an audience.

The songs in this musical are amazing and the show as a whole is still the best musicalisation of the struggles faced by actors, although anyone who has ever gone up for any kind of job can appreciate the sentiment of the line “God I hope I get it”. However it is the breaking of convention in its devising that sets this show apart and cements its place in musical theatre history.

Image: A Chorus Line at The London Palladium

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Recently I read a book by Stacy Woolf documenting the feminist history of the musical (Changed For Good: A feminist history of the Broadway musical, 2011: Oxford University Press) and it got me thinking about the female characters in shows I adore.

The writing of musicals has largely been dominated by men – with a few exceptions such as lyricists Dorothy Fields and Lynn Ahrens – and although that doesn’t mean men haven’t written some stonking great female roles, female characters can often be seen as sentimental drips: I don’t know many who like Christine in Phantom of the Opera as a character and let’s not get started on Cosette in Les Misérables.

The biggest example recently of womanhood and female domination is of course Wicked. ‘Defying Gravity’ is sticking two fingers up to the world and is the defining song for the character. Equally ‘For Good’ is a song of unity about two friends highlighting how the other has touched them and shaped their life – a sentiment most women can identify with. Most of the men are dispensable in this show, even poor Fieyro is mainly there for the girls to have something to fight over. The focus is well and truly on the two female friends.

For me, the strongest female musical theatre character is Elle Woods in Legally Blonde: The Musical, written by Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin. I like Elle for the fact she is smart and works hard to get in to Harvard Law School. Elle is friendly and gives everyone a chance even if that is thrown back in her face by people such as Vivian. Importantly she realises marrying Warner is not the purpose of her life and she can help people as a lawyer; when she chooses to be with Emmett it is on her terms, to the point of her being the one to propose. She also takes her dog everywhere, says “masturbatory emissions” and makes orgasm noises on stage to show up her ex. Who doesn’t find that great? Most of all though she is real, still larger than life but I can identify with her more than I can the green witch Elphaba. For all the comedy and razzmatazz of the staging in Legally Blonde, this is women supporting women and saying that no matter what you look like you can be attractive.

This isn’t to say there were no strong women before Wicked, it’s just that the more recent shows have them front and centre. I also have a fascination with older roles such as Mama Rose in Gypsy and Sally Bowles in Cabaret, and would love to hear what other people’s favourite female roles are.

Image: This Breed of Woman (1964)

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Most of the musical theatre community was shocked and appalled by David Sexton’s recent article in which he attacked not just the genre of musical theatre but the people who enjoy and work in musicals. There have been brilliant responses by @Westendproducer and Lyn Gardner and I don’t wish to add to their good work, but I did want to take this blog as a chance to voice my concern over one line of Sexton’s article: “They [musical theatre fans] just want to be pumped up with emotion by any means, lacking perhaps any interior life of their own.”

I pride myself on being a realist and also a fair human being. I do not mind if Sexton dislikes musical theatre because he has every right to his opinion. My brother also strongly dislikes musicals and despite what our banter on Facebook might suggest he would never attack me by calling me devoid of emotion for liking musicals. This is where I was caused the most upset by Sexton because, despite it being in an article for thousands of readers, I felt very personally insulted; this is an area of theatre I want to study at PhD level and to which I have invested the past five years of study.

Lyn Gardner made the point that this is a deliberately controversial article making a point of going against the tide of praise for the Les Miserables film, which is fine as newspapers need to guarantee readers and we know journalism can be a brutal place. Gardner also states in the article that “musical theatre occupies such a fragile place in theatre culture”. This is the crux of what really saddens me. Musical theatre is always hounded as the less important and less worthy branch of theatre. In Sexton’s view it also the lowly cousin of the just-about-tolerable genre of Opera.

Of course this is grossly unfair and sad for anyone working in a genre which requires a great level of artistry from writers and performers alike. So to hear that our form is “idiotic” is deeply upsetting. Musical theatre is an easy target because to many it seems so removed from life because of the singing and dancing (N.B. interestingly, not all shows use dance) yet I’m sure many ethnomusicologists would disagree. Music is and always has been inherent in our lives as humans so it makes perfect sense for us to enjoy it in our theatre, a fact proved by the popularity world-wide and box office figures.

In reality, and in academic life, I deal heavily with the prejudice facing musical theatre and specifically the twentieth-century construct of the ‘musical’. I like to imagine this is because it is a baby at less than 100 years old and that over time it will be more and more accepted as a legitimate form of theatre; I dream that it will be written about academically and appreciated for the work that goes into them. However, with writers such as Sexton getting such a soapbox to air their disparaging views it does seem like it will only ever be a dream.

Image: “A Chorus Line” at the Strand Theatre Thursday, March 24 (adapted)

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Nearly every interview and promotion has highlighted the fact that Les Misérables was sung live on set; now it has officially opened in the UK we can ask the question: was it worth it?

When I call myself a fan of musical theatre I rarely include films, despite films such as The Sound of Music and Annie Get Your Gun being my introduction to the genre. I have always felt somewhat cheated by them, whether by the dubbed taps in Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly films or by the recorded singing. The vocal part often went one step further with actors being dubbed, two famous examples being Marnie Nixon dubbing for Natalie Wood in Westside Story and for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. As many of the actors from the film have pointed out, it meant the Les Mis film got to be a lot more emotionally driven – it wasn’t just a competition between those who could belt it out the loudest.

Rather than writing multiple blogs on why the live singing was amazing it may be better to take an objective view of the technique. One problem with doing live singing is getting the balance between singer and orchestra; the live singing on Les Misérables involved actors having ear pieces and live piano played to them with the orchestra added in post-production. Most of the actors traversed this without any real problem. The one actor I felt let down by, although the blame doesn’t lie squarely with her, was Amanda Seyfried as Cosette. This role is often given a lot of slack: Rebecca Caine (original Cosette) has spent the past few weeks tweeting about people’s negative views of the character. In this instance I think it is a very hard role to sing and to sing with strength in comparison to the power house of Eponine; although having said that if the last note of ‘Heart Full Of Love’ were to be sung at full blast it would decimate Eponine and Marius.

Another problem as a consequence of the live singing was the use of sets as opposed to real locations for the most part. There was of course location singing such as that end reprise of ‘Do You Hear The People Sing?’ but it was location singing that meant parts were pre-recorded, such as the opening in the dockyard, as they clearly couldn’t mic actors with all that water. The most obvious set was the actual barricade. Now of course it is easier to record sound in the controlled environment of a studio, but as an audience we knew it wasn’t a real location. Though I do concede that you can’t go blowing up real Parisian streets, either.

The flaws of live singing are always going to be outnumbered by the positives. Getting right in there with a tight close up on Anne Hathaway singing ‘I Dreamed A Dream’ was incredible and to see the tears in her eyes and a slightly runny nose did feel more real. I honestly believed that for these characters singing was merely an extension of the spoken word – the most natural way to express intense feelings.

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I come back to my blog after a short hiatus just as the Les Misérables excitement gets going around the world. This also obviously means that critics are out to review. There is just one simple question floating around the twitter-sphere and in online forums: why did the Guardian send someone to review Les Misérables who doesn’t appear to like musicals?

I am a realist and I am aware that no single thing can be liked by every single person. I am also aware that Catherine Shoard is the Guardian’s film critic and not a theatre one, so her interests lie elsewhere. That is all I will say in her defence because her review rarely discusses the actual film and spends a lot of time knocking the stage musical.

Shoard states: “It’s not strictly a musical. There’s no dancing, there are no jazz hands and there is next to no speech”. This is wrong in so many ways it is hard to get past the annoyance to state them. The lineage of musical theatre is as a variation of operetta, which was a lighter version of opera. Musicals are not less valid for being lighter; it is just their heritage and they have all evolved to become their own valid entities. Musicals are just a different way of applying music to a play. Les Misérables is a nod to operetta mainly due to it being a through-sung musical which explains the “next to no speech” comment. It explains it, but doesn’t make it right in Shoard’s context of proving Les Mis is not a musical, as many shows are through-sung such as Evita, Phantom of the Opera and The Last 5 Years.

The last part of that quote I find offensive is the implication that a musical must contain dance or jazz hands for it to be worthy of the title of ‘musical theatre’. In a world of integrated musicals, dance can only be there if called for by the plot or style. Billy Elliot wants to be a dancer, ballet girls live at the Opera House in Phantom of the Opera and the use of ABBA music in Mamma Mia put dance hand-in-hand with the show. Yet there are also shows where dance is not required like Sweeney Todd, Miss Saigon or The Last 5 Years again. There are still elements of dance and movement within Les Mis but big dance numbers are not needed.

Shoard does go on to discuss and praise the director Tom Hooper’s handling of the film adaptation. The writer even praises Russell Crowe for not being up to the professional level of Hugh Jackman – although fans of the show may disagree when they are used to stage performers such as Philip Quast playing Javert.

It is doubtful the film is a verbatim version of the stage production, but from what I can tell the film makers have gone to a lot of trouble to be faithful – including live singing. This is a new cinematic technique and should be applauded as such, as should the whole film adaptation and its talented cast. Nothing has the ability to dull my excitement though, to finally see this eagerly anticipated film.

Image via lesmiserables-movie.co.uk.

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This week was the London opening of Loserville. A brand new home-grown musical, it seemed like it could’ve been the show everyone had been waiting for. So why, instead of rave reviews and tweets about how great it is, has a Twitter storm and media furore emerged?

I was struck by some of the points raised in a recent blog by theatre critic Mark Shenton. In the blog, Shenton highlights the discrepancy in age between some of the reviewers and the show’s main characters. It seems no great surprise that a show about nerdy teenagers with a pop soundtrack isn’t appealing to reviewers who are mainly 30 and over. He does mention that BA students at ArtsEd weren’t keen on Loserville either, but I don’t think this fairly represents the younger generation’s viewpoint. I have quite a few friends who were so excited by the production when it was first announced that they went to see it at the West Yorkshire Playhouse – although this excitement did seem to have been at least partially due to the fact that a member of Busted, James Bourne, was one of the Loserville writers.

People have also been objecting to the advertising strategy, with the slogan “if you love Glee, you’ll like Loserville“ seen as cashing in on other genres and successful shows. I found the comments on Shenton’s blog interesting. The first was “How can you possibly fit all of the different sit coms and series into one fantastic show? For example the big bang theory and glee are very different yet they advertise loserville in same bracket which just doesn’t make sense.” I’d argue that, in fact, this makes perfect sense – the marketing team knew their target audience of 20-somethings and teenagers who spend a lot of time watching channels such as E4, home of both The Big Bang Theory and Glee. Most of us who have been students have watched that channel for hours, so it doesn’t surprise me at all that they talked about those shows together.

I found myself getting defensive over the fact people seem upset that a show is appealing to a younger audience and marginalising the older generations, who do tend to make up the bulk of theatre-goers. This doesn’t strike me as a mistake on the show’s part but a good move in securing future generations.

I will finish with a quote Shenton cited from a blog by performer Matthew Malthouse who points out that Loserville “isn’t perfect, but it is a new fresh piece of theatre. With a young talented cast, and some of the most passionate dancing I have seen in years. I find that hard to criticise.”

Image via Loserville the Musical.

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Last year I wrote a response to fellow writer Elinor Walpole’s article on the relevancy of musical theatre in today’s society. I argued that musicals didn’t need to be explicitly relevant to us and that they are there for the joy of escapism. I still stand by that, but it would do musicals a disservice to say that’s all they can achieve. I read an article recently, by Frederick J. Heide, Natalie Porter and Paul K Saito, about a study in the US looking at how musical theatre can be used to change audiences’ attitudes through the power of theatre and music.

 “The major goal of the current study was to assess whether a musical comedy could shift attitudes as other narrative forms have done”. To monitor this they looked at the levels of captivation, intellectual stimulation, emotional involvement, spiritual value and social bonding. It isn’t hard to see which elements of musicals relate to these aspects: a sense of spectacle encouraged by lavish sets and costume provides the captivation, the plot and the melody of the songs cover the intellectual and emotional aspects – how many of us have got a little choked up over the Les Misérables trailer?

Theatre, like spirituality, is ephemeral, and this makes it hard to pin down. But I like to believe that different people take different things from a show. The social bonding aspect is fascinating though: David Mamet says of an audience “they are not involved in the sharing of ideas of the drama, but rather experience the thrill of the communal hunt”. In a show context, when I went to see the West End revival of Hairspray there was a moment when the characters Edna and Wilbur Turnblad seemingly corpsed. The audience found this hilarious and there was this feeling of excitement that all of us in the auditorium had witnessed something no one else would see. Of course later I found out this had happened at every performance and that it was a set up, but for that one shining moment I had a real connection with the rest of the audience.

The benefits of studies such as these are that they highlight the misconception that musicals are ineffectual and distant from real life, but you can easily make implicit connections between Carousel and the mentally torn soldiers coming home from World War Two, and there are other more explicit examples such as the HIV/AIDS backdrop to Rent. Often it’s the apparently random breaking into song that puts people off musicals, but Scott Miller is quoted in the article as saying: “all art is artificial… singing is just the language of musical theatre the way iambic pentameter is the language of Shakespeare.”

I still feel musicals are more for entertainment and frivolity compared with other forms of theatre. But of course all theatre naturally reflects the word we live in, consciously or subconsciously. What I struggle with is the idea of musicals being this massive force to change the world and how we live. But maybe just getting people to start conversations and question their own beliefs through the power of music is enough.

*Note: The full article can be found in Volume 6 of the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, titled Do You Hear The People Sing? Musical Theatre and Attitude Changes.

Image by Alan Cleaver.

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