Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A composer of musical theatre, best known for shows including Joseph, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, and The Phantom of the Opera.
On the island
Eight records
March from The Love for Three Oranges
Dallas Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Eduardo Mata
Well, I am a great lover of Prokofiev because he is such a superb melodist apart from anything else, superb orchestrator, of course. And funnily enough, I wanted to choose the March from The Love for Three Oranges because it was the first L P that I was ever given.
Some Enchanted EveningFavourite
Well, this is Sum Enchanted Evening, which is arguably uh one of the greatest tunes ever, ever written. In fact, my father played this to me, and he said if ever you get near this melody, he said, I really will be proud of you.
Well, I guess you know, anybody of my generation who's going to be affected by the Beatles, I mean, so hugely that it wasn't possible. I mean, it's an imp this is this is an impossible choice. I mean, uh, what could you take? I mean, you could take yes yesterday, you can take imagine, you can take anything. But in the end, I thought I'd choose I want to hold your hand because I haven't heard it for a bit.
Well, I think we have to have the king. I mean, Elvis has to be there. Now, this is a record, I think, rather than a song, but I really think without Elvis, I mean, uh a desert island would be a very, very barren place indeed.
Mstislav Rostropovich, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa
Julian, my brother, of course, was learning the Shostakovich cello concerto. Now this, you see, is, in my opinion, it's the essence of rock and roll in serious music. Because in fact, all the stuff what you're going to hear is when he gets into some check-a-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-cha-da-da-da-d you could transpose that onto a onto a rock band and it would sound so contemporary
Well, this is a little bit of an oddball one, but I think it's one of the cleverest food and wine sketches ever written. It's John Cleese and David Frost doing something called Matters of Taste.
I'm incredibly impressed by what's going on with the writing in Bollywood. I think some really great pop songs coming out there and Hindi pop I think is really happening. ... I think this guy is a genius. He produces and writes the songs himself.
Sarah Brightman and Paul Miles-Kingston
I think if anything it prob perhaps Piyezu would be the peace of mind that I'm b most fond of for that reason and and also for the fact that it was the first real thing I did with Sarah.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:31Why the musical theatre, Andrew? I mean, it might have been pop, it might have been classical, sacred chamber, but you chose the musical. Why?
Well, I was always fascinated by musical theatre from the very very word go. Um my aunt was an actress, uh not a particularly successful one, but uh I thought her world was unbelievably glamorous and she u used to take me to see some of the American musicals which were of course later in uh in Britain than they were of course in New York. And so I got to see an awful lot of things very early on. It just grabbed me and opera grabbed me.
Presenter asks
3:27How do you write a good tune? Does it just pop into your head? Do you sit and work out?
I don't know. I mean, um I had a hit last year with a song called No Matter What and I remember when I wrote that tune. I mean I just wrote it and I I thought I just don't know where this comes from and of course you suddenly get into yourself into a flat panic and think well somebody must have done that before so you can then check and check and check and um with with that sort of one it's so instant and um I I can't explain where it comes from.
Presenter asks
7:56How old were you when you wrote your first piece of music?
The keepsakes
The book
England's Thousand Best Churches
Simon Jenkins
because it's so beautifully illustrated, and he's done a wonderful job on the description of the churches. It's fabulous.
The luxury
we might have to have a little bit of a herb garden, so it might have to be some cuttings, if I'm allowed to take that, of various herbs and garlic and things, so that if ever I was able to cook or flavour things, I could do it properly.
But it was quite early because um my father collected a few of my tunes and got them published when I was about eight years old. Um and it c came out under the name of the Toy Theatre because I'd built myself a toy theatre where I staged ghastly musicals written by me. In fact, one of the tunes uh appears in Joseph.
Presenter asks
22:25Why did you buy your company back? I mean, you've done it kind of twice, just to sort of sum it up. You you mean it did you floated part of it on the stock exchange?
I made a terrible, terrible, terrible mistake and it but partly it was to do with circumstances at that time, um because the tax rates were so high that the real way if you could do anything was by uh floating it and you know maybe on the or having a company that you could uh float on the stock market. And it was a dreadful mistake for me to do because in the end I only end ended up with thirty percent of the company, you know, and we had to buy it back'cause it it just wasn't working.
Presenter asks
24:15Why can't you give people a free hand? Why can't you let something new happen [with international productions of your shows]?
Well you can you can. Uh but I mean if you went to see The Phantom of the Opera in London um and uh you then wanted to go and see it in New York, I think you'd be displeased if it wasn't the same it wasn't the same show, basically.
“I basically left Oxford for Tim.”
“I made a terrible, terrible, terrible mistake and it but partly it was to do with circumstances at that time ... it was a dreadful mistake for me to do because in the end I only end ended up with thirty percent of the company, you know, and we had to buy it back'cause it it just wasn't working.”
“I'm incredibly impressed by what's going on with the writing in Bollywood. I think some really great pop songs coming out there and Hindi pop I think is really happening. ... A. R. Rahman. I think this guy is a genius.”