As I’m sure you’ll know, music within the theatre had an integral part to play in responding to the death of Margaret Thatcher. The decision to keep the anti-Tory retaliation ‘Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher’ in a performance of Billy Elliot in the West End on the evening of her passing was put down to an audience vote. I’m sure that the performance of the number that night was a clear manifestation of what the musicologist Nicholas Cook termed “negotiating cultural identity”. A song that is lyrically sardonic, with jive-like beats and major key melodies and harmonies lending an ironic twist, being sung by young and old: a poignant symbol of Thatcher’s impact on countless generations. The bitter humour makes it understandable why the audience chose to keep the song in. Furthermore, the story is being told not on behalf of a whole nation, but from a particular sector of society: workers involved in the 1984–85 miners’ strike, affecting the British coal industry.

But perhaps the agenda is more subtle. In his book State of the Nation, Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington argues that “it seemed apt that the musical should become the dominant form of the 1980s since it represented Thatcherism in action: what it celebrated was the triumph of individualism and profitability.” It appears reasonable then that these values are not only embodied by the ‘song-and-dance’ templates, poster, ticket agency or hotel advertising, or even the goal-driven narratives, but also the architecture of the music. For instance, I see the score of Cats as producing order out of chaos, opening with uneasy, fugue-like passages which are resolved in ‘Memory’ – Grizabella’s desire to recommence a new life – and finally concluded in a triumphant orchestral and chorale-like wall of sound as she is the chosen feline to take the ‘Journey to the Heaviside Layer’. Les Miserables, without a doubt, takes on a similar structure: the gritty minor toil of the prisoners’ opening chorus, followed by an overwhelming range of numbers varying in mood and genre as Jean Valjean searches for the man inside himself. The climactic ‘One Day More’ and ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’ are permeated with the idealism of living for tomorrow, for the future, enhanced by the simple yet soaring melodic phrases. And while the gospel-infused ‘Light at the End of the Tunnel’ from Starlight Express sings the praises of steam-powered engines, there is undeniably a secondary message of the ability to achieve your destiny.

Of course, this is not the case with all musical theatre pieces. It would be a generalisation and historically inaccurate to frame every number within Thatcherist beliefs. Nevertheless, in light of recent events, it is fair to say that music has an extraordinary capacity to be able to say whatever you want it to, whether politically implicit or explicit.

Image: Billy Elliot

Annabelle Lee

Born in Hertfordshire, Annabelle is a graduate from Durham University with an honours degree in Music. She is currently studying for a Master’s in Music at Oxford University and intends to pursue a PhD. She was a Live Blogger for A Younger Theatre at TheatreCraft 2012 and now blogs monthly for A Younger Theatre on the role of music in theatre.

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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

Sarah Green

Sarah is a musical theatre graduate now studying for her Masters in theatre practice with hopes of going onto a PHD. She has been writing for A Younger Theatre since September 2011 on all things musical theatre related.

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The pairing up of two short plays always requires a delicate balance. Hull Truck Theatre has selected two monologues that address questions of life, loss and mortality for its latest offering in the building’s main house. Spoonface Steinberg by Lee Hall takes us into the life and mind of a young autistic girl who has terminal cancer, whilst Beckett considers the immediacy of death from the perspective of a 69-year-old man, unable to stop himself from looking back over his life.

Points of view are contrasted in this double bill. Spoonface, by the writer of Billy Elliot, deals with the difficult subject of life being cut unduly short, yet there is a strong sense of optimism in this simple and straightforward piece. Hall strips death of all pretension; there is something starkly real about Pippa Duffy’s innocent Spoonface. Duffy engages well with the tricky combination of innocence and awareness that Spoonface grapples with throughout the piece, prefiguring Krapp, who is torn between looking forwards and getting lost in the past.

As with any monologue, the challenge here was always going to be to create a visual life. Delivered direct to the audience by Duffy, Spoonface felt deliberately static. The microphone stand on stage pays tribute to the piece’s conception as a radio play and reminds us of Spoonface’s own love of singing, but acts as a physical barrier between us and her. Activity was limited, as Spoonface gradually adds ornaments to her initially simplistic costume. This sketched out the progression of the narrative well, but at times Fabrice Serafino’s set design and Katherine Williams’s lighting became a little too interesting in the quest for something to draw the eye. However, Duffy is believable as a seven-year-old, and delivers many lines with a wry understanding of adult behaviour, revealing that when doctors smile, “it means there’s something wrong”.

Krapp’s Last Tape was also brought to life behind the physical barrier of a desk laden with a hefty tape recorder and boxes of tapes. However, Alan Williams brought this claustrophobic environment beautifully to life with a performance alive with a delicious staccato rhythm that kept the audience guessing throughout. Pauses were relished, as they should be, and frenetic activity matched with more laid back, languid moments. Williams’s pacing is pitch perfect throughout, and entertains with a banana as proficiently as he haunts with his staring, empty eyes. He embodies Krapp’s staunch need for control in every movement, every word, and is genuinely quite mesmerising. The sense of space and situation was particularly strong here, with Krapp’s ventures off stage to pop a cork and pour a drink evoking an eerie sense of his entire house within the auditorium.

An evening perhaps not of high drama but certainly of questions and emotions. Two insightful pieces into the human mind and the human condition; Spoonface may have benefitted from a little more movement and freedom, but it set up an interesting contrast to the wave-like fluidity of Beckett’s text, and both certainly tackled troubling topics head-on.

Spoonface Steinberg and Krapp’s Last Tape were at Hull Truck Theatre.

Image credit: Hull Truck

Laura Turner

Laura is a writer from the East Midlands. After studying English at the University of York, she trained as a writer with Hull Truck Theatre, BBC New Talent and the Royal Court Theatre. She has worked extensively with touring theatre company Chapterhouse, where she is currently Writer in Residence, as well as other regionally-based companies. Laura wrote an episode of BBC EastEnders: E20 that was screened in 2011 and her adaptation of Jane Eyre recently toured UK theatres with Hull Truck Theatre Company.

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Dubious. A word I would use to describe my views regarding movies that have been turned into musicals. I have always pegged them as a lesser musical, right up there with jukebox musicals as lacking originality. The West End is currently dominated by movie adaptations: Shrek, Ghost, Wizard of Oz, The Lion King, Billy Elliot, Singin’ in The Rain, Top Hat and, until recently, Legally Blonde. I would also argue Matilda gets a large amount of its audience from people of my generation who were obsessed with the film – whilst the stage show may be based on the book, the film has helped guarantee a fraction of its audience.

I seem to constantly find myself re-assessing my views on musicals, which probably goes with the ever-evolving nature of theatre. So recently I asked myself if adapting films is any different to adapting novels. Many of the great shows are based on novels: Phantom of the Opera, Showboat, Oklahoma! and Les Miserables, to name a few. In fact if you look closely, very few musicals are complete originals. Rodgers & Hammerstein only ever wrote one completely original show, Allegro, and it flopped. They earned their keep in the art of adaptation.

Maybe I simply made a low-brow/high-brow judgement and assumed literary adaptions are better on an intellectual level. However, Hammerstein would change the original stories, such as the musical Carousel which is based on the play Liliom. The play ends with Liliom failing in his quest to help his teenage daughter and is presumably sent to hell. In the musical Billy fails but then redeems himself by admitting his love for Julie and makes it to heaven. I can’t help but wonder if we could get away with such deviation in the plot in film adaptations, or if audiences would be disappointed that it isn’t how they saw it on screen. And it isn’t just me being given food for thought and questioning the current trend – Michael Billington of the Guardian wrote an article earlier this year on the effect film has on theatre: “I worry that theatre today is becoming lazily dependent on cinematic content”.

It isn’t just the form I am re-assessing, but also the shows themselves. Ghost – The Musical is based on the film, yet has a completely new score except for ‘Unchained Melody’. I understand why it was used; I can imagine fans of the film demanding refunds because that song is so synonymous with the film for them. The writers of Ghost don’t let it detract from the rest of the score though – songs like ‘With You’ break your heart just like the film, and its modern staging and special effects are also a draw in their own right. It’s this avoidance of using song and music from the films that has made me re-consider my original viewpoint, as many movie adaptations have a completely original score.

For producers, adapting stories we already know has always given a level of security because you already have a guaranteed audience. This is what helps musicals: We Will Rock You was panned by the critics on opening night but audiences loved it for the popular Queen songs. Film and cinema dominate our cultural identity so it makes sense that we would turn to them for stories to turn into musicals and long will it continue. Yet I will always have a slight initial unease about these musicals despite how good the shows are. For me I think Billington sums it up: “I just wish the writers of new musicals would occasionally look beyond Hollywood hits for their inspiration”.

Image credit: Simon Shek

Sarah Green

Sarah is a musical theatre graduate now studying for her Masters in theatre practice with hopes of going onto a PHD. She has been writing for A Younger Theatre since September 2011 on all things musical theatre related.

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