My “essential” musicals…..

This Sunday afternoon I am a guest of Elaine Paige’s weekly Radio 2 show, choosing my “five essential musicals.” That doesn’t mean it’s a definitive list of what I think are the best musicals ever written, but ones that all have a special resonance or relevance to me. I won’t spoil the surprise by revealing the ones I’ve chosen here, but will instead take this opportunity to admit to what’s not on the list – but would have been there if I’d been allowed to stretch to another 15! Even then, of course, it’s always going to be a highly personal list!

The next 15, then, by category, rather than order of preference, are:

ACKNOWLEDGED BROADWAY CLASSICS

· My Fair Lady – probably the most brilliantly crafted of play-to-musical adaptations ever made
· Gypsy – maybe the greatest backstage musical of theatrical life
· West Side Story – what a score! As are Bernstein’s songs for On the Town, Wonderful Town and Candide, too. But we can’t have them all on the list!
· Carousel – of course we have to have a Rodgers and Hammerstein, and this is my personal favourite.
· She Loves Me – I’d choose this miniature gem over Fiddler on the Roof to have a Bock/Harnick score

SONDHEIM
Of course there’s a Sondheim on my Essential Five list already, but my next 15 would have three more, at least:

· Sweeney Todd, of course – undoubtedly Sondheim’s dramatic masterpiece, but harder to love than others because of its ugly story.
· Company – the ultimate urban musical.
· Merrily We Roll Along – the score is simply ravishing.

MORE RECENT BROADWAY
Broadway is still the market-leader, of course, when it comes to creating contemporary musicals:

· Chicago – even fresher and more resonant the second time around, Kander and Ebb’s work has to figure on any list of the best shows, and I’d choose Chicago over Cabaret.
· On the Twentieth Century – Cy Coleman is strangely underrated in the pantheons of the Broadway greats, but with the incredible variety of his output, from Sweet Charity and Little Me to Barnum, City of Angels and The Will Rogers Follies, he’s unrivalled. My personal favourite score, though, is On the Twentieth Century.
· Nine – I love Maury Yeston’s melodies, too, and though I adored Titanic and Grand Hotel, too (that he contributed additional material to), Nine’s a ten out of ten, for me!
· Dreamgirls – impossible to separate from Michael Bennett’s original production, of course, that I was lucky enough to see on Broadway, but this is still a stunner.
· Avenue Q – there’s been no warmer or wittier contemporary Broadway musical for years.

BRITISH ENTRIES
I chose one British show in my Essential five list already, but here are two more, finally, that I would add:

· Evita – Andrew Lloyd Webber has to be on the list, not just for a body of work that’s unparalleled in range but also his huge impact on the musical worldwide. And though I love Cats for its joyfulness and The Phantom of the Opera for its theatricality, the Lloyd Webber masterpiece remains Evita.
· Jerry Springer – the Opera – no contemporary British musical has packed so many thrilling melody lines into one score as Richard Thomas’s amazingly fertile and provocative work on Jerry Springer.