This morning on Fitzy & Wippa, legendary composer Andrew Lloyd Webber stops by in studio. Andrew talks about the musicals he wishes he wrote, his composing process and seeing Judy Garland perform when she was under the influence, which became a metaphor for Evita.
Andrew Lloyd Webber talks about the musicals he wish he wrote and how he starts writing a story.
WIPPA Yeah, but when we look at, you know, your music over the years, and we all grew up with Cats, of course, and Phantom of the Opera and Evita, of course Starlight Express was the first musical oversaw, I mean, what you've done and what you've created, and the history and the legacy that you've built with your music. It just it's part of everyone's life. That must mean the world to you to see people still enjoying it after so many years.
WEBBER Well it’s fantastic. I mean, but I like to keep going. Yeah, that's it, you know, growing up. Yeah, I got a new one in London. That's a big hit, which is my version of Cinderella. So it keeps going the next thing is getting that to Broadway. And then you know, I'm now looking for something else to write.
SARAH MCGILVRAY What about Phantom of the Opera? Because I live for Phantom of the Opera. I love it. I love it. I love it so much when it was made into a film. How involved are you in in that process?
WEBBER I was quite involved with the music side of that. But in a way you have to let these things go. I mean, what's exciting about the Phantom in the Harbor for me, which I have not yet seen, but you know, Simon Phillips, who's directed it is a fantastic director. He did a wonderful job with my love never dies. And it's great to see sometimes production done entirely differently to the way that they've been done before. I mean, I get a little bit now I in my advanced old age, I kind of think, you know, I didn't really want to go and see an identical production as say the one in London. So it excites me to go to see something completely different to see whether somebody's got to take on it with things that I didn't do. Seeing my own show.
FITZY Andrew, can I ask you, what's the one musical that you haven't written that you wish you did?
WEBBER Well there are loads of them, actually. I mean, Westside story, obviously, I would say, well, frankly, I mean, any other Rodgers and Hammerstein ones? That music I absolutely could not have written but no, no, I could not have done is Hamilton. Sure. Fabulous musical, you know, but that's a completely different genre than I can do.
WIPPA Can I ask a question? When you sit down? And you think I've got a brand new project? I've got a brand new narrative and a storyline that the structure of it is simple. How do you start? Is it you at the piano? Is that you trying to find the key parts to the music?
WEBBER Well, say I got a great story, the first thing I have to look at is, why would it be a musical? What's the point? And what can I bring to it that makes it actually different to what the story was before? I mean, for example, in Evita, I, I wasn't sure about that as a story at all. And then I thought, hang on a moment, if I could create a moment where she is absolutely at her peak with a with a song, which became Don't cry for me, Argentina, and that turns on her. And that in her final broadcast, when she's broken, she can hardly get through the song. That's something which is theatrical. And I drew on something that I saw in real life, which was Judy Garland.
WIPPA Wow, her last performance when you saw that?
WEBBER Yeah, I think it was her last performance. And she was frankly, drunk, she was drugged or both. And she tried to get through Over the rainbow. And yes, and, you know, it was like, and the audience was booing and the ping and the other. I saw it again, with Amy Winehouse actually. I mean, long, you know, and you sort of saw this little woman, you know, with Judy Garland being crushed, like a kind of somebody had got a sparrow in their hand, and we're just crushing it, and it stayed with me. And that was the, if you like metaphor that I found for doing Evita. I saw I saw away into it. And in any story that I'm looking for now, I have to think, what's the weigh in? And why would I do it?
