James Rampton chats to Sir Tim Rice about his life, career and forthcoming UK theatre tour My Life In Musicals – I Know Him So Well which is heading to Norwich Theatre Royal on 31 May.
What great news that you are touring the country once again with your terrific new show, My Life In Musicals – I Know Him So Well. What made you want to go on the road?
Over the years I had done quite a few shows like this, mainly for charity, and also on cruise liners. The show features songs with my lyrics, most of which, I’m very happy to say, are quite well known. I would tell what I hoped were amusing and/or entertaining stories about how each song happened – and tales about the great composers with whom I wrote the songs – Andrew Lloyd Webber, Elton John, Alan Menken, Bjorn and Benny and one or two others. I was supported by a live band and four top class singers – two guys, two girls – who between them would let rip (brilliantly) with the vocals. It was tremendous fun.
Do you get nervous before going on stage?
If I’m honest, I don’t really get nervous before the show. As long as there’s an audience.
I understand that you sing during My Life in Musicals – I Know Him So Well
That’s right. But not a lot you’ll be glad to hear. I sing when I talk about I Don’t Know How to Love Him, which is the romantic ballad from Jesus Christ Superstar. Andrew wrote the tune about three years before Superstar. Its original title was Kansas Morning and it was a pretty grim lyric (by me) about a bloke dreaming about his home state – Kansas. Andrew and I wrote it hoping to get a pop hit with it. Music publishers quite liked the song, and they sent it out to various artists, but it never got recorded. Thank goodness. And the reason it never got recorded, I now realise, is that the words were not my finest hour. They were terrible. But the tune was fantastic and when I wrote some decent lyrics it became a great song. In the show I perform Kansas Morning which to put it mildly makes the point that a bad lyric can kill a good tune. And raises a big laugh. Audiences will be relieved to know that I Don’t Know How to Love Him is also in the show, sung superbly – but not by me.
Do you enjoy interacting with your fans at the shows?
Yes. Both on stage and off. On stage we always get everyone standing at the end singing along to Any Dream Will Do. I don’t think they are standing up to get out of the theatre first. It’s lovely that stuff I wrote half a century ago is still hitting home.
After the show It’s really nice to meet people – the ones who like my stuff anyway.. At most shows someone I haven’t seen for years comes to say hello backstage afterwards – maybe an old school friend or a performer in one of my early shows – and that’s always a delight. The fans and friends are terrific; a very nice group of people coming round backstage who always seem to dig up photographs and record sleeves either that I’ve never seen, or not since the early seventies.
When you’re working on a musical, is the story always paramount?
Yes. When we were creating Evita, for example, both the composer and the lyricist had to know what was planned for each scene before a word or a note had been written. Was it a love song, an argument, a seductive number, a huge crowd anthem – all had to serve the plot – and the characters. I think Evita is Andrew’s best score. Time and again he would come up with a melody and ideas for orchestration which was perfect for the storyline. Story is always king. In musical theatre anyway.
The best musicals have the best stories. That’s the key. There are exceptions such as Cats, but they are rare. Look at Oliver! It’s an immortal story, and Lionel Bart was thus inspired to write wonderful songs. He wrote both words and music – quite a staggering achievement! Virtually all the great musicals – from my childhood days such as My Fair Lady, Guys and Dolls, and Oklahoma through to West Side Story, Les Miserables, Wicked and Hamilton – have terrific stories. Even Mamma Mia which, of course, has such wonderful Abba hits, needed a very good story. It’s tongue-in-cheek, but it really works. A good musical , like a good play, needs to establish where it’s going, or might go, and what the characters are going to grapple with, pretty early on. If you can get that settled in the first five or ten minutes of the show, then you should be off and running.
You have also had some success with pop songs, haven’t you?
Yes, but nothing like my success in the theatre. I’ve always found it difficult to write a lyric when I don’t have any idea of the situation the performer is in, or could be in. However, I really enjoy it when one of my show songs breaks into the pop charts which has happened quite a few times, even though they were not originally written for radio, but for theatre. I Know Him So Well from Chess, Any Dream Will Do from Joseph and Don’t Cry For Me Argentina from Evita have all been number one singles in the UK. But perhaps my most exciting chart success was when A Whole New World from Aladdin which I wrote with Alan Menken, went to number one in America.
The only non-theatrical substantial record success I’ve had is A Winter’s Tale which I wrote with Mike Batt and was a big Christmas hit for for David Essex over forty years ago! But it comes up on the radio every December and still sounds good.
Of all of the marvellous songs you’ve written, do you have a favourite?
That’s very difficult. It is like being asked who your favourite child is. It sounds very arrogant to say so, but there are quite a lot I like. I would not say any one of them is the best, though. I like High Flying, Adored from Evita, and Heaven on Their Minds from Jesus Christ Superstar works well, too. Anthem from Chess?. That song was sung in English at the Nobel Prize Annual Dinner in Stockholm some years ago. It was great to see it sung by a very large choir and orchestra in front of all those Nobel people. Nobody invited me to the bash, however.
Do you have a favourite song by someone else, perhaps that you wish you’d written yourself?
Oh, there are lots, but The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel is pretty high on my list. I love a lot of rock and roll songs like Summertime Blues and Chuck Berry’s lyrics are masterly. Ditto Jerry Lieber. I think Gee, Officer Krupke (Sondheim) from West Side Story is as good as it gets, and every word of My Fair Lady is wonderful, too. tunes. My favourite Elton song is Sacrifice – words by Bernie Taupin.
Sir Tim Rice’s show My Life in Musicals – I Know Him So Well is at Norwich Theatre Royal on 31 May. For more information or to book, visit norwichtheatre.org or call the Box Office on 01603 630 000.
