In an article in the Christmas edition of ‘The Spectator’ Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys puts forward the argument that musical theatre has become divorced from popular music culture; that musicals contain the sort of music you only find in musicals; that it has no relevance to contemporary music and it exists in a creative ghetto. He puts forward a strong case and, from an artistic point of view, it is hard to disagree with his analysis but there are wider issues here he does not address.
As someone who classes himself as an amateur musician but a professional businessman I do feel a tension between art and the need to make a profit (or at least not to make a loss). In the 21st Century and especially in our current economic climate if a piece of work seems unlikely to be a commercial success then the chances are it will not gain funding and will not be made. The businessman in me fully understands the imperative of this but my artistic nature worries that this rules out the possibility of a risk being taken on cutting edge work and it is this, I believe, that can be said to be largely responsible for the West End musical making no attempt to be part of contemporary music culture that Tennant is unhappy about.
Theatrical producers need to convince investors they will make a return; as a result productions only gain backing when there is confidence they will be popular with the public. For their part the public can book (generally expensive) seats for a show in the knowledge they will have an enjoyable evening’s entertainment without any surprises. The outworking of this is that consistently theatres produce musical theatre rather than straight plays (unless the play contains big names from the large or small screen). Furthermore to ensure commercial success those musicals are likely to be revivals of vintage shows with a proven track record: The Sound Of Music; Oliver; Joseph; South Pacific etc; stage versions of popular films: Lion King; Beauty and the Beast; Legally Blonde; Ghost etc or based on old pop hits being given a second ‘career’ in musicals: We Will Rock You; Mamma Mia; Tonight’s the Night etc.
Cutting edge artistic endeavour it may not be but in the end analysis we need to decide whether this state of affairs is a good or bad thing. On the one hand if we continued with the milk and liquidised food we ate from birth we would miss the culinary wonders of steak, grilled fish, smoked salmon, barbecued chicken etc so, in the same way, if audiences are only ever given musical fare with which they are familiar or comfortable how are they to expand their taste and find new and exciting theatrical experiences. On the other hand successful and popular musical theatre in the West End gives gainful employment to thousands of musicians, stage hands, lighting/sound engineers and costumiers etc not to mention theatre staff and other businesses in theatreland that benefit from the influx of theatregoers.
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