For over forty years Andrew Lloyd Webber has been pumping out musicals including the hugely successful ones like Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, and the lesser known ones like Starlight Express, Whistle Down the Wind and Woman in White. Now the best bits of all of them have been put together for The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber, a show that takes you through the writer’s long career. OUTinPerth spoke to cast member Michael Cormick about the new show.
Taking on the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber seems like a pretty huge task?
It’s the variety that keeps us going. There are so many different styles of music that he went through which is the interesting part of it. You start with Superstar which I think is a fantastical musical and then there’s Evita that’s difficult and different and the Phantom of the Opera that’s different again. Whistle Down the Wind has all this gospel type stuff in it. It’s quite a variety.
They say in a musical that the songs should always move the story forward, in this setting presented without the stories, do the songs lose some effect or do we appreciate them more as tunes?
What we’re trying to achieve is giving you part of that theatrical experience, creating little moments of all the shows. Some of the pieces are presented as solos but others have a few songs strung together. As performers we have to be quite pliable to head into each sequence, but that’s what makes it interesting and a challenge to perform.
We all know the big hits, but are there some lesser known tunes in this production?
Of course there are, I don’t think many people would have seen Whistle Down the Wind, because it’s just been on in the UK and the US, it got lots of gospel and spiritual influences. There’s also Woman in White, which I did in London, plus there some songs from Andrew’s newest musical Love Never Dies, the sequel to Phantom of the Opera.
The Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber is on at Burswood Theatre from April 16.
