Monday 25 October 2010

CLOSING NUMBER

My eight-part BBC Radio 2 documentary series, The Musical, comes to an end tonight when Ramin (Love Never Dies) Karimloo presents 'Back to the Future', a exploration of the current trend dominating the theatres of Broadway and the West End – the so-called 'Juke Box Musicals' epitomised by such productions as Jersey Boys, We Will Rock You and the global phenomenon based on the Abba song book, Mamma Mia!



The programme, and the series (superbly produced by long-time friend and BBC collaborator, Malcolm Prince) concludes with many of our guests from the past two months – Elaine Stritch, Liz Robertson, Cameron Mackintosh, Tim Rice, Patti Lupone, Ruthie Henshall, Richard Stilgoe, Elaine Paige, Paul Nicholas and others – reflecting on the current state of the musical and pondering its future...

Curtain up at 10:00 this evening and if you miss the show, you can hear it for the next seven days courtesy of the BBC's iPlayer.

3 comments:

scb said...

I am not at all ready for this series to come to an end. I have enjoyed it immensely, and have learned so much! Thank you, Brian!

(You might enjoy my latest post, From Stage to Page, in this light...)

SharonM said...

Great end to a terrific series, Brian. And nice that you actually got an extra mention before the credits tonight.

And it ended on an optimistic note as far as musicals are concerned.

Sheila said...

Another fascinating episode - which left us wanting more! I thought the summary at the end summed it up well: it was not a history, but a well-crafted study. And, of course, there's no reason why there couldn't be a follow-up?