Musicals are Wicked! In The True Sense of That Word…

Monday is about movies, and sometimes TV. Today, I finally tackle musicals. (And hogtie them too).

Somewhere, over the rainbow, there’s a better script, and some songs that mean something…

Wicked! No thanks. I’ll see almost anything at the movies, or via my television or iPad. But I won’t be watching Wicked. And it’s no huge stand I’m making. I just know it’s not to my taste. You see, now how can I phrase this delicately; I fucking hate musicals!

And in the case of Wicked the more I see or hear about it, the parodies of the interviews, the interviews themselves, the trailer, the water-cooler conversations, the less I want to see it.

I was never a theatre kid, and therefore never a musical-theatre kid. I take my inspiration from Hank Hill when I say my issue with musicals is they’re not making theatre better, they’re just making music worse.

And of course there are exceptions. There is always exceptional content. To be sure, I’m listening to the soundtrack to the Rocky Horror Show while I write this. I only recently picked up the original movie soundtrack, I have a couple of (weaker) cast recordings — I have seen the show, and loved the version I saw, and the movie is one of the most profound and influential films of my life. I saw it when I was very young and it rightly flipped my wig. Tim Curry was positively electric. The way he always was of course. And Meat Loaf was in it! And well, the entire cast was incredible and the book was terrific. Rocky Horror was as absurd and wonderful as a John Waters film — and came from similar influences, which is probably why Hairspray gets a pass in my world too. What really makes Rocky Horror erm, sing, for me, is the music. It’s music I want to listen to away from the show, away from the film.

I think that’s it. Most of the time when watching musicals I can’t think of any other time when I’ll want to hear the tunes. Sometimes I can barely identify them as actual ‘tunes’ while it’s happening.

I genuinely love the music of West Side Story, but the show and filmed versions do not do anything for me particularly. And maybe that’s because I don’t like giving over to musical ‘logic’ — the bursting into song, the fact that everyone knows the lyrics all of a sudden, and can harmonise on the spot in a moment that’s just happening for the first time.

And maybe the PTSD I feel is from being taken to see Cats when I was quite young. I went to it again at university, when the thrill of concerts and events was all anew and it felt ‘adult’ to put on a tie and attend. A third time for me at Cats recently, because I might be a bad person but I try to be a good dad. And my son was into musical theatre, and performing, and we thought it would be good for his education. Good Christ, that particular production was a stinker. We all thought so. Amateur hour.

And so the Bad Film Junkie in me totally wants to see that ludicrous movie version of Cats. But any chance to studiously avoid whatever James Corden is up to has to take priority.

A year or so ago my folks were in town, and they love a musical — they did not pass that love on at all. But like being a good dad, I also want to be a good son, something I probably struggle with a tiny bit more, anyway, I dragged myself along to Kinky Boots, because it was in town also, and they wanted to see it. Look, it wasn’t bad. I had a good time seeing it — but of course in my mind I was going to see something that Cyndi Lauper was involved in, that was the hook.

And though I have not seen The Lion King show, the film remains a gold standard (the original animated one), so I’m sure that’s an amazing spectacle also.

But Andrew Lloyd Webber is the culprit in all of this. His influence on what The Big Musical must be was draped all across the 1980s like a pervasive mist of wine cooler.

And Les Misérables too.

I would feel trapped in cars that played cassette tapes of Cats and Les Mis, or Starlight Express or Jesus Christ Superstar. I remember being taken to a local production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat that felt so interminable I’m not quite sure it’s actually finished — that particular show I mean, not the season. Just to be sure, I have a marker on the map of Napier that blocks out a couple of streets. I’ve never been back down there. The theatre could be closed for all I know, but that bloody show is probably still going.

Roger Waters, a man not exactly known for his melodic grace has that line in his Amused To Death album, “Lloyd Weber’s awful stuff runs for years and years and years” from his song, It’s A Miracle. I have to side wiht Uncle Rog there. (The theory he has is that Sir Lord Andy stole the melodic motif from his Pink Floyd song Echoes, and you can certainly here an, ‘echo’ of it in Phantom, but whether it arrived there by theft or fluke is in the ear of the beer holder I guess).

I’m always grateful to meet someone else that hates the Musical as much I do. I think it’s like crayon artwork, like water-colours created from sputum. It feels like a maths-test masquerading as art. Fancy dress with fancy ideas above its low, low station.

So, no, I won’t be seeing Wicked! I’m real happy for anyone that feels elated by the musical. It’s not my life’s work to see a full-force ban on them ever happening. I just personally think they’re shit.

With, as I said, one or two exceptions.

Very late with my Christmas Wishlist, but if anyone is still wondering what to get me…