Michael Crawford's Going to Be The Wizard, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz!

This is exciting news. If you grew up watching Mr Crawford in Hello, Dolly at your Grandpa's house like I did, you'll have a soft spot for the performer.

My sister and I also saw him in The Woman in White, but didn't realise it was him underneath the fat suit and the accent until about half-way through.

The Wizard isn't the largest part of all time, but this casting certainly suggests Lord Webber's not holding back when it comes to populating his Oz. Can't wait to find out who the Tin Man, the Lion and the Scarecrow are...

Photo by Gabrielle Crawford, showing Andrew Lloyd Webber, Danielle Hope (Dorothy) and Michael Crawford (The Wizard).

Spotted: Theatre Stars Galore at the Open Air Theatre

There was a host of just-about familiar faces at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre last night.

So many, in fact, that I stuck them all in a VL blog post on the subject:

1. Natalie Casey
2. Desmond Barrit
3. Nigel Cooke
4. Clive Rowe

It's an odd mixture, isn't it? I'm sure there were far more actors in the crowd; it seems they like the Open Air Theatre. Last time we were there, watching the very brilliant Much Ado About Nothing, A and I witnessed much drunken hilarity from someone who looked very much like Su Pollard... but we couldn't be sure.

Did they enjoy Hello, Dolly! as much as my sister and I did?

I doubt it.

(You can read my pretty restrained londonist review of the show here.)

Cultural Magpie: New Musicals

Since new musical Spring Awakening failed to totally impress me, although it was great (read my londonist Spring Awakening review here), I've been on the look out for other new musicals, and having a think about some old ones too.

Exciting news here on the new Phantom of the Opera sequel. It's called Love Never Dies, which strikes me as a cross between a Bond film title, and a Celine Dion song. I wonder what it'll be like?!

Baz Bamigboye (not being a Mail (urgh) reader, I have no idea who he is) says a few interesting things about it. Here's the main stuff, so you don't have to read the Mail yourself:

From what I've heard, it sounds like the best work Andrew has produced in decades. I confess, I didn't know he still had it in him - it's a score of high passion, full of longing and regret.

Director O'Brien noted that the music - and the show's story - are about maturity. "Not only that, but a vast repository of his [Lloyd Webber's] own life and themes are coming back and being newly re-explored."

He added pointedy: "He's not phoning this in - it's all new stuff."

Indeed, it is a completely different sound to the main melodies in the original Phantom show - however, the composer noted that there are a couple of tiny motifs that will be familiar to the many millions who have seen Phantom on stage or screen.

Slater observed that the first Phantom was driven, emotionally, by youthful insecurities. This older Phantom is driven by adult regrets. "It's about choices and consequences," O'Brien added. "This is about the road not taken."

This has me swinging between toe-curling anxiety and appreciative nodding.

1. Clever, making it about maturity (they've learnt something from Mamma Mia! etc)
   
2. Good, it's got a new sound, but still keeps some "tiny, familiar motifs" (well, duh, it's ALW, isn't it?!)
   
3. Positive noises, "full of passion, full of longing, full of regret" - all fine by me
4. Yes, enjoying the use of the Jon Stewart favourite: "phoning it in." And pleased that ALW isn't. Cos I think it'd be quite a complicated process were he to try
   

But what do we do with the news that "the Phantom (is) living in a fairground on Coney Island. He is somehow reunited with Christine, now married to Raoul and with a son"??

Terrible, terrible, terrible ideas. "Somehow" in a plot summary has all kinds of alarm bells a-jangling, right?

I was thinking yesterday about some of the more dreadful lyrics from Spring Awakening, and wondering whether I was being a little harsh, being so down on them. Afterall, the programme notes made sure we were aware that they were deliberately gauche and teenage. But I can't see this as an excuse.

I was sitting on the bus, trawling the musicals of my mind, and this, from the sloppiest of them all, still makes my skin tingle:

Night time sharpens, heightens each sensation,
Darkness wakes and stirs imagination,
Silently the senses abandon their defences
Helpless to resist the notes I write (Phantom)

Then there's this, which is still beautiful after all this time.

Don't listen for those bells, for love is only love
And if it's love you've found, your heart won't hear a sound
But if you're really wise, the silence of his eyes
Will tell you love is only love, and it's wonderful enough (Hello Dolly!)

I could go on. (Please don't.)

Let's hope, wherever ALW's musical odyssey is going with this New York Bond Film Phantom Sequel, he's got a decent lyricist on hand. Charles Hart, Richard Stilgoe, Don Black, that kind of thing.

Other new musicals I've picked up on my magpie rounds:

1. Heathers?? Laurence O'Keefe, who wrote the score for Legally Blonde, is penning the songs; Reefer Madness director Andy Fickman and writer Kevin Murphy are part of the project; and it's got the blessing of the original movie's production team
2. Ghost?? heading to the West End next year, with music by Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics, and Glen Ballard, who produced Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill

For this week's musical dose, I'm heading to the New Wimbledon Theatre for some reassuringly old school fun: Singin' In The Rain.

Altogether now: "Make em laugh, make em laugh..."

Happiness is... a Hello Dolly! Press Release

There are few things in this world that make me happier than Hello Dolly.

So I'm chuffed to bits with this piece of news from the lovely people at the amazing Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park:

Completing the line up for 2009 will be the ten-time Tony Award-winning musical Hello Dolly! from 30 July – 12 September. The classic will be directed by Timothy Sheader and choreographed by Stephen Mear, collaborators on last year’s hit, Gigi. As one of the most enduring musical theatre hits of all time, the theatre’s park setting will indulge in the lavish glitz and glamour of New York as Dolly Levi comes to town to do what she does best: match-make. With Jerry Herman’s much-loved score including It Takes A Woman, Ribbons Down My Back and the hugely popular title song (made famous by Louis Armstrong), this is one of Broadway’s most irresistible musical comedies.

Woo and indeed Hoo.