The state of new British musicals….

Though the year is lining up to be a bumper one for new musicals, nearly all of them are in productions originating from the other side of the Atlantic, led by Movin’ Out, Avenue Q, Spamalot, Wicked and Caroline or Change. There’s also a local touring staging of the Broadway show Footloose coming to the Novello with a British creative team, plus the revival of Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George transferring from the Menier to Wyndham’s. But Sinatra at the London Palladium had its origins in a show first seen at Radio City Music Hall, too, which means that the sole UK-originated West End entry in the “original musical” stakes will be the now-delayed Daddy Cool, based on the back catalogue of 70s and 80s pop group Boney M (and coincidentally directed by an American).

All of which makes for a depressing prospect for anyone British who might wish to write or otherwise participate in the creation of an original homegrown musical. (The closest we’ve got to one of those seems to be a stage version of Lord of the Rings that opens in Toronto this week, where I head tomorrow, which has an almost entirely British creative team marshalled behind it, though the two composing teams for its score are respectively Indian and Finnish).

But last night I saw a glimmer of hope in the midst of the apparent hopelessness of a situation that, outside Lloyd Webber, and latterly Stiles and Drewe (though their biggest success has been adding extra songs to the existing Mary Poppins) and Richard Thomas (with the most assured musical debut with Jerry Springer – the Opera since Howard Goodall’s over twenty years ago with The Hired Man), barely gives any opportunities to British writers. Notes from New York, an inspiring season of Sunday showcases that ran in 2004 of the work of the rich seam of writers from there that we know little of over here, returned and was re-branded, for one night only as Not(es) from New York, to celebrate the work of two local composers instead.

And to hear a series of haunting, funny, captivating new songs by Charles Miller and Grant Olding was to realise that here are two of our own who can give Jason Robert Brown a run for his money. Jason has acquired something of a cult following amongst aficionados over here, and rightly so, though his work is yet to penetrate to a larger audience; but Miller and Olding don’t even have that specialist niche in their sights yet. But someone should look them both up urgently; and get them working on a real musical rather than a showcase of work they’ve already written immediately.