There is no manual for making a hit musical
Sarah Hemming - Financial Times
Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, first performed in 1981, was a daring mix of form and content
It is, sometimes literally, a million-dollar question: what makes for a hit musical? Five years ago, few would have given you good odds on a hip-hop treatment of an American Founding Father. Yet Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton has become the toast of Broadway. Hamilton’s dazzling success must give hope to all who venture into the treacherous waters of musical production. If frock-coated historical characters rapping can pack the stalls and transform the genre, surely there is no subject that cannot bear fruit?
Hamilton is by no means the first show to pull off a daring and original mix of form and content — consider Cats, The Book of Mormon and London Road (a sung-through musical based verbatim on conversations with residents in a town shaken by a serial killer). Meanwhile, The Scottsboro Boys, a blistering 2010 show about nine wrongly convicted black youths, brilliantly demonstrated how a musical can tackle a subject as incendiary as race.
But before we all rush off to pen that Europop fusion about the EU referendum, we should pause a moment. Musical history is littered with sorry tales of bold experiments that have hit the rocks. The Fields of Ambrosia (1996) fatally tackled state execution, with one jaunty number sung alongside the electric chair. It got the chop in London after 23 performances. Bernadette (1990), the story of a young French girl who saw visions of the Virgin Mary, had the blessing of the Pope, but even that could not save it from closing in less than a month. Moby-Dick (1992) featured schoolgirls having a whale of a time performing Herman Melville’s epic novel in a swimming pool, but sank after 15 weeks — though it fared rather better, at least, than former DJ Mike Read’s Oscar Wilde, which closed in London after just one night in 2004.
And such ventures do not come cheap. The cost of staging a West End or Broadway musical varies wildly but can be eye-watering. The ill-fated Viva Forever! (featuring music by the Spice Girls) reportedly left its backers with a £5m loss — and that despite the experience of impresario Judy Craymer who also produced global hit Mamma Mia!
Well-known songs can work, hence the proliferation of “jukebox” musicals, or shows based on a familiar book or film (Matilda, Billy Elliot), though the rule does not always hold. Made in Dagenham, despite positive reviews, a strong story and a star in Gemma Arterton, sold poorly and came off early in 2015. And even the most successful names can come a cropper. Reflecting on the early closure of Stephen Ward, his Profumo scandal musical in 2014, Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote: “What makes a hit musical? Fools give you reasons, wise men never try.”
If humans cannot fathom the secret, perhaps computers can? One musical which just finished in London’s West End was the brainchild, largely, of algorithms. Complex software analysed 1,700 hits and flops to come up with a formula for location, story, shape and music. The result, Beyond the Fence (set at the Greenham Common peace camp) counted computer programmes “Android Lloyd Webber” and “Propperwryter” among its credits. Its problem, perhaps predictably, was that it sounded formulaic.
Better perhaps to turn to Showstopper! The Improvised Musical for inspiration. The team behind this ingenious show are masters at turning unlikely material into musical delight. They make up a brand new musical every night, each one based on the high-risk strategy of suggestions from the audience, creating lyrics, music, story and dialogue on the hoof. It is a tactic that mixes extensive knowledge of musical formats with audacity, originality and wit — and a keen sense of contemporary culture. A tiny bit like Hamilton perhaps — but only for one night.
Sarah Hemming - Financial Times
Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats, first performed in 1981, was a daring mix of form and content
It is, sometimes literally, a million-dollar question: what makes for a hit musical? Five years ago, few would have given you good odds on a hip-hop treatment of an American Founding Father. Yet Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton has become the toast of Broadway. Hamilton’s dazzling success must give hope to all who venture into the treacherous waters of musical production. If frock-coated historical characters rapping can pack the stalls and transform the genre, surely there is no subject that cannot bear fruit?
Hamilton is by no means the first show to pull off a daring and original mix of form and content — consider Cats, The Book of Mormon and London Road (a sung-through musical based verbatim on conversations with residents in a town shaken by a serial killer). Meanwhile, The Scottsboro Boys, a blistering 2010 show about nine wrongly convicted black youths, brilliantly demonstrated how a musical can tackle a subject as incendiary as race.
But before we all rush off to pen that Europop fusion about the EU referendum, we should pause a moment. Musical history is littered with sorry tales of bold experiments that have hit the rocks. The Fields of Ambrosia (1996) fatally tackled state execution, with one jaunty number sung alongside the electric chair. It got the chop in London after 23 performances. Bernadette (1990), the story of a young French girl who saw visions of the Virgin Mary, had the blessing of the Pope, but even that could not save it from closing in less than a month. Moby-Dick (1992) featured schoolgirls having a whale of a time performing Herman Melville’s epic novel in a swimming pool, but sank after 15 weeks — though it fared rather better, at least, than former DJ Mike Read’s Oscar Wilde, which closed in London after just one night in 2004.
And such ventures do not come cheap. The cost of staging a West End or Broadway musical varies wildly but can be eye-watering. The ill-fated Viva Forever! (featuring music by the Spice Girls) reportedly left its backers with a £5m loss — and that despite the experience of impresario Judy Craymer who also produced global hit Mamma Mia!
Well-known songs can work, hence the proliferation of “jukebox” musicals, or shows based on a familiar book or film (Matilda, Billy Elliot), though the rule does not always hold. Made in Dagenham, despite positive reviews, a strong story and a star in Gemma Arterton, sold poorly and came off early in 2015. And even the most successful names can come a cropper. Reflecting on the early closure of Stephen Ward, his Profumo scandal musical in 2014, Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote: “What makes a hit musical? Fools give you reasons, wise men never try.”
If humans cannot fathom the secret, perhaps computers can? One musical which just finished in London’s West End was the brainchild, largely, of algorithms. Complex software analysed 1,700 hits and flops to come up with a formula for location, story, shape and music. The result, Beyond the Fence (set at the Greenham Common peace camp) counted computer programmes “Android Lloyd Webber” and “Propperwryter” among its credits. Its problem, perhaps predictably, was that it sounded formulaic.
Better perhaps to turn to Showstopper! The Improvised Musical for inspiration. The team behind this ingenious show are masters at turning unlikely material into musical delight. They make up a brand new musical every night, each one based on the high-risk strategy of suggestions from the audience, creating lyrics, music, story and dialogue on the hoof. It is a tactic that mixes extensive knowledge of musical formats with audacity, originality and wit — and a keen sense of contemporary culture. A tiny bit like Hamilton perhaps — but only for one night.