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Dateline: 31st July, 2006
Lloyd Webber Slams "Uninteresting" New Musicals "Can you name me an interesting new one (musical)?" Andrew Lloyd Webber asked in an interview in the Radio Times this week. Most new musicals, he went on, simply depend upon the "feel-good factor". "There's going to be a cataclysmic change in entertainment in the next five years," he added. "Only three shows are doing any business - Billy Elliot, Phantom and The Lion King. Some shows are losing £100,000 a week. Something completely different needs to happen. "Watching Evita the other night I realised that where (Tim Rice) and I were headed - Evita dies and the last 25 minutes are extremely bleak - was such a different direction to where musicals have landed today." He doesn't, he said, have a "huge desire" to write another musical and is concerned about the commercial future of the big West End theatres. "The Theatre Royal Drury Lane is a Grade I listed building that isn't going to be viable without a major renovation. Air conditioning alone is £20 million. If it wasn't listed we could do that for £1 million. "No commercial person can find that sort of money and the theatre could never generate it, so what's the future? Something has to happen with these buildings and you can imagine property people sniffing around." Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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