The week of my cricket team’s annual tour of Cornwall. I formed Heartaches CC in 1973 and 765 games later it is still going strong. Not that I am a key component of the side these days, if I ever was, despite my seven wickets against Mullion in 1991. When I suffered my fourth injury in three of the past four seasons (and one of them occurred when I was minding my own business umpiring) I saw the writing on the scoreboard. I just hope I’m not injured as a spectator this year.
For some reason 2025 has been an extraordinarily hectic year, musicals wise. Annoyingly hectic in fact. I know I should be grateful for continued interest in past work but, in my 81st year, I should have spent more days at Lord’s or the Oval than in theatres. It all began with a 36-date tour of the UK and Ireland, wearily but accurately entitled My Life in Musicals – me reminiscing (mainly truthfully) about some of the terrific composers I’ve worked with, plus four wonderful singers, Duncan Waugh’s ace band and 20 or so songs from the shows. I even got away with a date at the London Palladium. The terrific composers? Besides A.L.W: Elton, Bjorn and Benny, Alan Menken, Mike Batt, John Barry, Burt Bacharach – I’m a lucky wordsmith.
The big surprise package has been Evita at the Palladium – an extraordinary success conjured up by Jamie Lloyd, who first directed the show in the open air at the Regent’s Park Theatre in 2019. A chunk of his latest version was also in the open air, via the brilliant wheeze of having the excellent Rachel Zegler deliver ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ from a real balcony to passers-by. When word got out that a free eight-minute concert at about 9 p.m. was available every night in Argyll Street, passers-by were outnumbered by more stationary observers, the size of the gathering (1,500-plus) sometimes approaching the numbers inside the theatre (who merely saw the radiant Ms Z in that scene on video). Those non-paying theatre-goers would for once have been justified in saying there was only one decent song in the score, as quite a few critics have implied over the years – absolute cobblers, of course. The weather was kind during the Palladium run – but I’m told Rachel had ‘Singing In The Rain’ in reserve.
Then there was a terrific revival of Jesus Christ Superstar at the uniquely impressive Watermill Theatre in Newbury. By and large it got even friendlier reviews than Evita did. The young cast were the orchestra and for 20 minutes the audience moved out of the building into the garden – which became the Garden of Gethsemane. I loved the production but – as I have done for many years since 1971 – when words are performed with crystal clarity, as they were at the Watermill, I keep spotting lyrics that need improving. Not too many of them, I hasten to add, but hearing the odd dodgy rhyme or dreary phrase can really annoy its creator for at least 20 seconds. But whenever I suggest a change, someone always says that it’s their favourite line.
Two final 2025 theatrical ventures. Chess, which I wrote with Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, is being revived some 37 years after its extremely brief run. The score and the songs of the show have been extraordinarily popular since they were first heard on record in 1984. However, theatrical interpretations, to put it mildly, have had a turbulent history. This latest version is returning to the theatre it graced so fleetingly in 1988 – the Imperial. We can’t do better than book writer Danny Strong, director Michael Mayer and leading lady Lea Michele. Let’s hope ‘I Know Him So Well’ and ‘One Night In Bangkok’ are at last seen in their true colours on the great White Way. Or (gulp) were they last time? And then Andrew Lloyd Webber and I have written half a dozen songs to slip into a new comedy by Humphrey Ker and David Reed entitled Sherlock Holmes and the 12 Days of Christmas. A serial killer is using the evergreen Christmas song as an inspiration for a dozen grisly murders. All will be revealed at the Rep Theatre, Birmingham, from 14 November.
It’s been fun to write some new theatrical stuff with Andrew, and good practice for when we team up with the film maestro Jon M. Chu, who is following his superb Wicked with our Joseph, a mere 57 years after we wrote it for Colet Court School in west London. That’ll be quite enough for 2026. More time for cricket.
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