Reuniting with Sunset Boulevard creatives Don Black and Christopher Hampton, Lloyd Webber takes aim at Britain’s Profumo Affair, a salacious 1963 scandal involving the country’s war minister, a young model, a Soviet naval attaché, and Stephen Ward, the osteopath-slash-socialite later dragged through the court system for having introduced them to one another. Lyrics by Christopher Hampton and Don Blackīy Lloyd Webber’s standards, this show is practically a chamber piece, and a clear move to graduate to more explicit material. Standout songs: “All for Laura,” “You Can Get Away With Anything.” The original West End production was plagued by technical problems and went through multiple rounds of revisions but never landed on the right alchemy of ingredients Wilkie Collins’s Victorian-era source material certainly has the makings of a compelling musical - ghosts, a murder mystery, an inheritance battle, a love triangle, a villainous count - but the adaptation lacks a hook (musically or dramaturgically) to give it personality. Phantom’s more chill cousin is also far less interesting. Standout songs: “Til I Hear You Sing,” “The Coney Island Waltz,” “Devil Take the Hindmost.” “Love Never Dies” is fine, but the original (“Our Kind of Love” from The Beautiful Game) is better. The bloated mess that eventually reached the stage is a testament to all of Lloyd Webber’s worst impulses as both a composer and a producer. The plot sounds like an SNL sketch cut during dress rehearsal: What if, after the events of Phantom of the Opera, all its characters wound up at Coney Island? No one asked for a Phantom sequel, and the universe itself seemed to conspire against its creation when, during an early writing session, Lloyd Webber’s kitten climbed atop his computerized piano and deleted the entire score with one bat of its tiny paw. Lyrics by Glenn Slater (additional lyrics by Charles Hart) Only five songs in The Wizard of Oz (2011) were written by Lloyd Webber the rest was composed by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Bombay Dreams (2002) was produced by Lloyd Webber with music by A.R. Hear a New Andrew Lloyd Webber Song From the School of Rock Musicalĭisqualified: Cricket (1986) was never recorded, and most of its songs were later reused. Given Lloyd Webber’s proclivity for scrapbooking together new and old songs from his catalogue in service of whatever show he’s producing at the time, the scores considered for inclusion in this ranking were the most complete and easily accessible versions of each show (e.g., The Beautiful Game instead of its later unrecorded rewriting, The Boys in the Photograph By Jeeves instead of its first draft, Jeeves). But with new earworms to enjoy, we thought it time to take a look at the rest of his oeuvre to see how it compares. Many critics expressed mild relief that he hasn’t totally lost his ability to pen a good score, and it’s hard to find fault with their disillusionment Lloyd Webber’s flair and reputation for producing (read: monetizing) musical theater has lately outstripped his talent for creating it. Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical School of Rock opened this week on Broadway to some of his best notices in years. Photo-Illustration: Maya Robinson and Photos by Getty Images
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