Stage musicals: a very brief history by Aleks Sierz (author of In-yer-face Theatre: British Drama Today)
Beery origins | Curtain up! | Spotlight on Broadway | Brits bite back | Future shocks
Beery origins
Musicals are as British as warm beer. They were born in olde England taverns when veteran boozers burst into song. Eventually, in the 1840s, these sing-songs were organised on the public stage and called music hall – the first truly British popular entertainment.
In 1843, the Theatres Act forced pubs to choose between offering solo artistes who sang while the public drank, or becoming serious theatres with no drinking allowed. Charles Morton, licensee of the Canterbury pub in south London, is credited with inventing music hall when he built a hall next to his pub in 1852. He upgraded the fun by including opera arias as well as ballads.
By the 1860s, music hall was a major industry. Stars such as Marie Lloyd, Dan Leno, Little Tich and Vesta Tilley sang songs like 'My Old Man Said Follow the Van', 'Down at the Old Bull and Bush' and 'I'm Henery the Eighth I Am'. Respectability came when George V attended the first Royal Command Variety Performance at the Palace Theatre in 1912.
Curtain up!Irving Berlin pioneered the Broadway musical with his ragtime Watch Your Step in 1914, and he contributed to several versions of the Ziegfeld Follies, a show which filled New York theatres with glam girls and witty songs. By the time of Shuffle Along (1921) and Show Boat (1927), black musicians were giving the jazz some edge.
Still, typical Broadway fare was the cheerfully feather-light and foot-loose No, No Nanette (1923), and other dancing comedies saw the names of Jerome Kern, Al Jolson and George and Ira Gershwin in lights. Then Cole Porter lit up the world with Anything Goes in 1934. In London's West End, the American invasion was matched by homegrown products that mixed jazz rhythms with British wit in the sparkling work of Noel Coward, Vivian Ellis and Ivor Novello.
Spotlight on Broadway
By the 1940s, during the Second World War, American dominance of the musical was emphasised by big guns such as Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. The sunny optimism of their Oklahoma! (1943) began a new era of big bright shows that were hits in the West End as well as on Broadway. More lyrical and vocally demanding than the shows of the 1920s, Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959) soon became classics.
Other big names were Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, who created the romantic Brigadoon (1947), the heartwarming Paint Your Wagon (1951) and the luscious My Fair Lady (1956), which was not only a Broadway smash but also became the most popular musical in the world. Similarly, the lyricism and humour of Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls (1950) swept all before it.
The glory days of postwar musicals were also notable for Irving Berlin's charming Annie Get Your Gun (1946), Leonard Bernstein's dramatic West Side Story (1957), John Kander and Fred Ebb's slinky Cabaret (1966) and Bob Fosse's strutting Chicago (1975). Audiences also raved about Hello Dolly (1975) and Fiddler on the Roof (1976). Foot-tapping concept musicals reached their peak with Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line (1975).
With the arrival of the smartest kid on the block, Stephen Sondheim, the American musical hit the heights of sophistication with acid wit and satirical lyrics: from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) through Company (1970) and A Little Night Music (1973) to Sweeney Todd (1979) and Passion (1994), Sondheim dazzles with his cleverness.
Brits bite back
In the 1950s, the British scene was led by Sandy Wilson's The Boy Friend and Julian Slade's Salad Days, but these could never compete with the big, bold Americans. In 1960, Lionel Bart's Oliver! was a hit, but London had to wait until the 1970s before the power of Broadway was challenged by two British chaps, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice.
They developed a new style of sung-through musical which mixed classical music with pop: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968), Jesus Christ Superstar (1972) and Evita (1978). Meanwhile, in the hippie footsteps of Hair (1968), the rock opera was born, and gave the world Stephen Schwartz's Godspell (1971) as well as Grease (1972).
Then, in the 1980s, Lloyd Webber went spectacular with the British mega-musical: the meouwful Cats (1981), the roller-skating Starlight Express (1984) and the lavishly sentimental The Phantom of the Opera (1986), whose crowd-stunning falling chandelier soon became legendary.
Even state-funded theatres were thirsty for musicals. In 1985, the Royal Shakespeare Company staged the explosive Les Misérables, by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, but the National Theatre's attempt at staging a new musical, Jean Seberg (1983), was a dreadful flop.
Future shocksThe London-born Mamma Mia! (2001) used Abba pop songs to tell an emotionally strong story, and compilation musicals, such as Buddy (Buddy Holly's music) or We Will Rock You (the Queen musical), rule London's West End. At the same time, there's an increased vogue for stage versions of successful films, such as Mel Brooks' The Producers and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. In 2004, Lloyd Webber made a comeback with The Woman in White.
The musical remains a gutsy lady, and her show tunes will never die.
