Going to see the new smash hit show Matilda the other night, I was once again reminded that, as a creative musical force, the contemporary West End musical is dead. It contains the sort of music you only find in musicals; it has no relevance to contemporary music; it exists in a creative ghetto. The musical has become divorced from popular musical culture.
Theatre critics seem to have no value system for judging the music in musical theatre. They might declare that a new show has ‘a sparkling score’, which means that to their ears it was relatively unobjectionable, didn’t get in the way of the story and wasn’t too loud, but they’ll ignore the fact that the music and lyrics have one foot in the past and the other in parody, are utterly forgettable and unremarkable, and in the larger popular music culture are irrelevant. Even supposedly ‘cutting edge’ shows of recent years are musically insignificant. Rent, for instance, a show with an apparently modern, urban subject matter — drugs and HIV in downtown New York — has one pleasant song at the beginning of act two, the rest is sentimental, faux singer-songwriter stuff which couldn’t get arrested as pop music; it’s not good enough. Spring Awakening was a critically acclaimed show with a rock-influenced score greeted as an important step forward, but it contains nothing that anyone would listen to outside of its immediate theatre context. As rock music it’s doesn’t work; as musical theatre it’s soggy.
Many years ago, musical theatre was a huge source of contemporary popular songs — pop hits, jazz covers, new standards all came from shows like Oliver!, West Side Story, South Pacific etc. These shows played a vital role in contemporary popular music that is now more or less inconceivable. Oliver! practically launched the Sixties musical culture. Written by Lionel Bart in 1960, it ran in the West End for most of the decade and easily coexisted in the pop world alongside the music of the Beatles and the Kinks. It even influenced the late Malcolm McLaren at the beginning of Punk. Again, inconceivable now. . It is very rare today for a song from a musical to have the relevance to contemporary taste that gives it a life outside the theatre. The only musical theatre composer of the last few decades who has understood that for a musical to be a success it needs pop hits (and therefore have a place in contemporary popular music) is Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose musicals have each been launched with pop hits. From ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’ by Julie Covington to ‘No Matter What’ by Boyzone, his hit songs mean that the audiences for his shows know they’re attending something of now, even if the subject matter and romance are not necessarily ‘cutting edge’. And pop hits, of course, sell tickets. Stephen Sondheim is not thought of as a pop songwriter but ‘Send in the Clowns’ and ‘Losing My Mind’ were hits and numerous other songs written by him are covered constantly. He is part of contemporary musical culture.
Matilda has had unanimous five-star reviews from critics. It is an excellent production with first rate, even brilliant performances and a great story for a musical. The songs, however, are a parody of the kind of music you only get in musicals and will have no life outside the theatre. That, of course, is not intended anyway. Musically the show is light years behind Oliver!, written 50 years ago.
I think one reason for the success of the dreaded ‘catalogue’ musicals, like Mamma Mia! and We Will Rock You, is that the audience can go to the theatre and hear songs familiar from the radio and the past. Rather than new pop hits emerging from musicals, old pop hits are having second careers in musicals. Songs from an original score will rarely if ever be heard on the radio (outside of Elaine Paige’s niche Radio 2 show).
There is something so sad, defeatist and lazy about this: the West End musical makes no attempt to be part of contemporary popular musical culture whereas all the great musicals of the past did precisely that. The public attending a new musical now is resigned to hearing the sort of songs you only hear in musicals whereas the audience attending the first night of Oliver! in 1960 went to see and hear something fresh written by a pop genius who had penned hits for Cliff Richard and Tommy Steele. It would still be possible to write a musical with a contemporary pop score that maybe sounded like Rihanna or the Arctic Monkeys or Adele but no one is attempting it at the moment. I’d like to see a new musical that sounds as thrilling and new as West Side Story must have done on its first night in 1957.
It’s not all gloom though. The musical show London Road, produced earlier this year at the National Theatre, had a revolutionary score which set to music the real, reported and unedited conversation of ordinary people in a difficult situation. It made for an engrossing and original night. (No potential hits, though.)
Neil Tennant is the singer of Pet Shop Boys.