Archive for Musicals.Net Musicals.Net |
| RainbowJude |
POTO: the SequelI've been mulling over the news updates about Andrew Lloyd Webber's sequel to Phantom of the Opera, which was originally going to be an adaptation of Frederick Forsyth's The Phantom of Manhattan. Lloyd Webber has abandoned the novel as source material for the sequel, which will now have an original story with, book and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Glenn Slater. An outline for this appeared in the Daily Mail:
I suppose the obvious deduction from this outline is that the Phantom fathered Christine's child is. This concept is not a new idea; indeed it is central to the ending of Susan Kay's novel, Phantom. The implication is that the sins of the previous generation will all be rectified in the next , with Eric's son, Charles, having all of his gifts but not his deformities. However, the idea for a sequel seems as misguided to me as the many bad decisions that plagued the film version of the original musical. The original musical loses what little real emotional impact is has if the Phantom just picks everything up and carries on as normal and I truly believe that he would die not too long after the end of the action of the original musical - which is what happens in Kay's novel and is, I guess, is ingrained in me because of how much I love that book. The only really effective way to do a sequel, in my opinion, would be to do a prequel based on Kay's novel. I think that would be a smashing idea. Later days David |
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| LaGataNegra |
I will reserve judgement until the show comes out.
He didn't stick to the book the first go 'round, I don't expect him to stick to the book (either one) on the sequel. |
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| ConverseSneaker |
Honestly, I wish that he had listen to his cat. I mean, they gave him his first sucessful musical and deleted his score for this show. You think he would realize how intelligent they are and abandon this project. | ||||
| Brock07 |
True story. They really are intelligent animals. |
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| Mistress |
Yeah. My sister's cat comes runnign when my sister puts a container of milk to a little plate-she's knows she's getting a treat (she loves a little milk every once in a while) |
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| Sweeney Hyde |
Musical Sequals = Dumb
They simply do not work, in my opinion, and certainly, I do not think that a sequal by Webber will work. He just doesn't have the mind to pull it off, imo. |
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| RainbowJude |
New NewsReported at Playbill: Andrew Lloyd Webber has named Ben Elton as the librettist for the POTO sequel. Elton is, of course, responsible for one of the weakest books in all of musical theatre (We Will Rock You) as well as for the the book of Lloyd Webber's flop musical The Beautiful Game, which is currently being reworked as The Boys in the Photograph.All in all, not a great track record within this difficult theatrical form... Later days David |
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| Mazz |
Ben Elton writes very well. We Will Rock You was initially a dark, vivid vision of a dystopian future with a plot that wound around and made you think. The Beautiful Game was a brilliant story about life, how it isn't fair, and people take too long to realise that killing each other isn't going to make it fair. It was ingeniously constructed - the romeo and juliet couple were the ones who ended up happy, he brutally slaughtered the comic relief at the end of act 1 to bring it in close to home. It was a victim of Foot and Mouth, but after a year, sadly, was beginning to go the way of all Ben Elton theatre. He can't leave it be. He has to go in every couple of weeks and tweak it, and invariably manages to take out a good bit and replace it with something nonsensical or crap. After a very short while what is left is riddled with holes where good material used to be, badly patched over with rubbish that makes everyone cringe.
He's just a useless editor. There should be a clause in any contract he has to write a play or musical that once it's written and out of previews, he may not touch it again. |
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| RainbowJude |
???Are we talking about the same shows? I find it difficult to believe that either show (but especially We Will Rock You) approached anything near brilliance or even engaging mediocrity.Later days David |
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| Mungojerrie_rt |
Everyone I know that saw We Will Rock You loved it and said it was both fun and meaningful. | ||||
| RainbowJude |
WE WILL ROCK YOU = Weak Musical Theatre
The book of We Will Rock You is an unmitigated disaster: it starts off with an concept that is semi-interesting but the show is so badly constructed that it just unravels into a revue-like mess of songs at the end. The dialogue is basically a series of clunky one-liners, some of which raise a mild chuckle but which basically fall flat. I don't think this was a problem of delivery on the part of the actors; I think Elton's book is awful. There is no consistency in the story: one thing I found immensely jarring was the fact that, for someone who is trying to suppress and destroy rock music, the Killer Queen sings an awful lot of it. And the love story is never properly resolved - all right, there's a poor attempt at a resolution after the curtain calls and at the end of the encore ("Bohemian Rhapsody"). Galileo and Scaramouche share a kiss as they sing, "Nothing really matters to me." A little odd, no? The only thing there is to enjoy in We Will Rock You is the music of queen. So maybe that can be considered fun. But meaningful? What a joke. The show pretends to be about something important, but never gets to grips with it:
Any way you look at it, We Will Rock You is a weak piece of theatre that really only succeeds because it capitalizes on the music of Queen. It's really just as simple as that. Later days David |
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| Lady Jemima |
Why isn't Webber going out in the glory of his past successes? Why on earth is he risking his reputation on this? I truly am confused. I can't see any logic in this move at all. He's going to marr his greatest masterpiece. If I end up eating my words when it comes out, fine, but I've got serious reservations about the whole business. | ||||
| The Guard |
While this sounds a bit like the subplot of SUPERMAN RETURNS, I'll give it a shot. Who knows, it may be the first masterpiece sequel to a masterpiece. Let's face it, a lot of people already think ALW is a hack. It's not like the quality of this sequel will affect the original PHANTOM production's. Well, unless it's rewritten to be more in line with the sequel. | ||||
| LaGataNegra |
Don't give them any ideas... |