Interesting Links for 22-08-2023

[andrewducker]

1. Did you know there was a musical version of The Lord of the Rings?

(tags:theatre musicals lotr )

Comments

[wychwood]

I thought for a moment there must be two! We sang some pieces from it a few years ago, but in that context we talked about it being by A R Rahman (the Bollywood legend) and the Finnish band Värttinä, whereas the linked review only mentions the librettists. Not sure whether I'm relieved or disappointed...

[naath]

where there's a whip there's a way

um

it's a bad film

[calimac]

Yes, and I have the CD of it, but for some reason I've never played it.

I once wrote in a scholarly article, "The Once and Future King made an impression on the general literary audience far exceeding that of The Lord of the Rings four years earlier. Its importance in general culture may be measured by the fact that it was adapted into a professional stage musical almost immediately, in 1960, beating The Lord of the Rings by 46 years."

[coth]

There was, and Brian and I went to see it all those years ago. It was unwieldy, not musically memorable, and struggled to tie its big musical set pieces into a story that dealt far better with Frodo's traumatic journey than the films managed. Bad reviews everywhere meant its run was cut short - we got half-price tickets on the day for its penultimate performance in London, a matinee in a half-filled auditorium. After the show we went for dinner at Number One, Aldwych where we spent all evening talking about it.

The next day I researched what we had just seen. At the time you could find stuff on the internet about it. The musical was launched in the shadow of the film trilogy, was reviewed by 17 people who complained that it wasn't the film trilogy on stage, and just one - somewhat ironically, I feel, the theatre correspondent for the Daily Mail! - whose words conveyed a genuine response to the production we had just seen. And after that it vanished entirely from internet memory: whenever I google it (as I do periodically, out of curiosity) I don't find those reviews - they've vanished behind paywalls or into the ether; they never released a recording of the production or any performance; nobody sells the book; nobody wrote essays thinking about the production. And if I have a copy of the programme I don't know where it is.

So I'm immensely pleased to see it's back again, and might even find the time and money to go and see it again. Hopefully this time round it will get some of the consideration it deserves. Thank you for posting this.

[kerk_hiraeth]

Well now I do.

Thanks for that...

I wish I didn't but stiil a ;-) because please don't take my opinion of the concept too seriously.

kerk

[agoodwinsmith]

"... no, but if you hum a few bars ..."

Bah dah DUM tish.

[anna_wing]

I saw the first production. It was fun, though I disagreed madly with how they arranged the plot, and the music was unmemorable.

I preferred the puppet version that I saw in Chile in 1997, which had two very memorable orcs as the narrators...

[andrewducker]

I love all the different approaches!

[foms]

The linked post reminds me of very little so much as The Reduced Shakespeare Company's The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd4h16DWpdU

[anef]

It sounds entertaining, but I'm reluctant to go to a musical with frankly not very good music.

[andrewducker]

I think that's totally fair.