Lord Lloyd-Webber angry? Crikey! On How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?, the BBC talent show in which he is trying to find a young woman to play the lead character for his forthcoming stage production of The Sound of Music, his disapproval is measured in pursed lips, flounces and creepy passive-aggressive stares. Today, no more Mr Softly-Spoken. We’re not talking Incredible Hulk rip-your-shirt-open, but still . . .
On Thursday The Times reported that Trevor Nunn, who has directed Lloyd Webber musicals, had said that talent shows such as Maria “more or less rely on the viewing public being witness to distress”.
Nunn e-mailed Lloyd Webber later, making it clear that his views did not pertain to Maria in particular, although he has turned down the chance to direct The Sound of Music.
But, stirred by yet more criticism of the show, in an exclusive interview Lloyd Webber today defends Maria and reveals that not only is he planning to do it all again but also that he is going to take part in similar shows on US TV.
“Maria does not demean musical theatre or these girls,” he says adamantly. “I have spent my life nurturing young talent. I love, and have devoted my life and career to, musical theatre. Those girls have access to the best acting, singing and dancing teachers. One came up to me and said that she’d learnt more on the show than in three years at acting school. Auditions are much more brutal. You’re just told, ‘We’ll get back to you’.”
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Well, hang on — as well as Lloyd Webber sitting on that ridiculous throne thing and the producers squeezing as many tears from the contestants as possible, there is the cruel, though admittedly camp and hilarious, sight of the losing contestant being serenaded by the other girls to So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night.
Lloyd Webber also claims it is “nonsense”, as has been reported, that he has already signed up his Maria, making the show a charade. It is true, he admits, that he has employed Emma Williams to play the part — but for two shows a week only. For the other six, the role will be played by the Maria chosen by the public on the TV show. “That is no different to any other show in which I use a young female lead,” he says angrily. “It’s to protect the voice of the actress performing the six shows.”
Lloyd Webber is proud to have punctured The X Factor’s audience. The ITV talent show still beats Maria in the ratings but the gap is closing. “The girls are loving every minute. There has to be an element of jeopardy: this is a prime-time TV show. The thing I most love is that I am bringing musical theatre to a Saturday-night audience.”
He is pleased that it has upset the critics. The Daily Mail says that it is a “trainwreck”. One critic said that Lloyd Webber wouldn’t cast shows that he had composed himself “in this tawdry manner”. Not so, he reveals. He is considering “a number of offers” to do a similar talent show in America, casting a lead for Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, Phantom of the Opera or Starlight Express. He is also planning a second, similar show — around a different musical — for the BBC next year.
Lloyd Webber also says that he is signed up to You’re The One That We Want, in which he and a panel of judges will cast actors for the roles of Danny and Sandy in a stage production of Grease. It was reported that while David Ian, his Maria co-producer (and long-time collaborator), had got the gig, he hadn’t. “That situation has been resolved,” Lloyd Webber says in a tone of voice which suggests that someone from the
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BBC/NBC co-production may be walking around with a dagger in their back. “It was my idea in the first place. I will be doing that show.”
As for relations between him and Ian, whose rivalry and disagreements have become such a feature of Maria, he says: “We’re fine, old friends.” But again, the brusque tone suggests that their friendship might have been strained by Ian being named the most powerful person in theatre by The Stage, knocking Lloyd Webber off the top spot.
“I don’t care about fame,” Lloyd Webber insists. “I’m well known as myself without doing Maria. I’m not Simon Cowell — who is a friend and who I think is brilliant. We are different to The X Factor. We don’t want to revel in the freakish. This programme is providing a platform for musical theatre that it has never had before. The only people upset with Maria are a few precious luvvies who think things should be done a certain way.”
However, like The X Factor, viewers tend to go for colour and eccentricity over professionalism and talent. “So far the public has understood what we are trying to do and has voted, um, correctly,” Lloyd Webber says, again testily. “But in the final the public will vote for the winner. Of course that worries me. Whoever it is will have to do six shows a week at the London Palladium. You don’t want to be in the situation of a professional debacle.”
But, he says in the airy tones of an old pro, he has lost “more than two million” (the sum he has put into The Sound of Music) before. “The real jeopardy here is to my reputation.”
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Lloyd Webber doesn’t think he would do a similar TV show with his next project, a musical of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, a satire set in Stalinist Russia. It’s one thing solving a problem like Maria — quite another having the Devil and a naked girl flying across the Moscow sky.