What started your interest in musicals?

Great idea for a thread!

I’ve talked a bit about this before, but my first musical was Joseph, I was (and am still) a huge fan of Jason Donovan. I remember sitting through the first few numbers absolutely transfixed- and at that point my love of musical theatre was born. During the summers of 1992 and 1993, a friend and I spent a week of each summer getting day seats and watching as many musicals as we could in that week, and from there I’ve never looked back!

Well I’d always had a bit of theatre when I was really young - occasional trips to the Millennium Centre and some movie-musicals on tv, I remember quite liking The Wizard of Oz when I was about 8, but nothing much. Then I went to see Frozen in the Spring after it came out and fell in love with it. I bought the DVD and the soundtrack and the singalong soundtrack, books, mugs, you name it! Then I decided to have a listen to the Wicked cast recording at the recommendation of a friend and because it also had Idina Menzel and then I became obsessed with that too. Hairspray was also an early musical love after doing it at school. So 2015 I saw Wicked twice and Hairspray once plus Idina in concert, the following year I returned to both along with asking to go to a few others such as Billy Elliot and Little Shop. In 2017 I saw 16 different musicals, and the rest is history!

I also started with amdram- lots of Gilbert and Sullivan but also things like A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum. Lots of musicals on black and white TV for me too. My dad had LPs of Oliver, Paint your Wagon, The Sound of Music and others. He then bought me a triple cassette of Evita, Superstar and Joseph, and so it went on!

I was pretty clueless about musicals when I came across the vinyl of the Vienna cast recording of Cats in a record shop in 1988. There was something about the logo that didn't let me go and for days I wondered what that record would sound like. So I returned to the shop a few days later to buy it - and a lifelong obsession was born. Such was a magic of a creative beautiful musical poster/logo back then.

Anyway my answer is a slow burn over many years...I remember Mum buying me the Joseph tape from Woolworths (google both of those things young 'uns) and being obsessed. Meanwhile our Primary School choir conductor, who looking back was camp as Christmas, taught us musical theatre songs. To my shame still, he asked 'does anyone NOT know this' when teaching 'The Sound of Music' and I was the only one who raised my hand...we were not a musical household and I didn't even see The Sound of Music until I was about 25.

It was in fact, in 2003 when Mum and I were on a trip to New York, and we saw The Boy from Oz that the obsession was truly born. We'd been going to see plays for a few years, and a couple of musicals, but nothing had created the real LOVE that night did. About 9 months later I discovered Rent- like viserys I didn't know anything about it but the CD case grabbed my attention....the rest as they say, is history.

I started with watching repeats of the Fred & Ginger, the Rodgers & Hammerstein, etc. musicals on TV when I was about 5 or 6. I was then taken to local amateur productions of a couple of the R & Hs plus some Gilbert & Sullivan. A couple of years later I was taken to the only West End show I saw as a child: Return To The Forbidden Planet (I did see some ballets & children's productions in London too). After that I spent several years going through a horsey phase & it wasn't till my mid-terns that I started getting interested in the arts again. That interest was mostly for opera, though I did see Kiss Me Kate at the Victoria Palace when I was 17 (2002). When I was at university I started going to the theatre fairly regularly but initially it was opera, classical concerts & plays. Then in September 2006 I, fatally, listened to an episode of a programme called Stage & Screen which Edward Seckerson presented on Radio 3. It was about a show I'd not heard of before called Wicked...!

Starlight Express at the Victoria Palace for me. My mum took me on a work theatre trip. We had seats near the front of the circle. The trains zooming past were intoxicating for the 11 year old me. Saw lots of theatre but musical theatre very much stayed at the fore.

Probably a slow burn throughout my life, partly through my mum introducing me to the classic movie musicals whenever they came on TV. Couple that with Panto and seeing Starlight Express when I was very young - whenever we went to the theatre it always felt so special. - Mum would always insist on being right up front in the stalls no matter what.

As a teen, apart from being obsessed with Grease I didn’t go to many stage shows and was far more obsessed with pop concerts, but by my 20s I just really liked the structure and experience of going to see musical theatre much more. Hate to say it but Wicked was probably the one that sparked that final light that changed everything.

It was the first UK tour of Hairspray for me - I'd seen some musicals before then (very infrequently), but Hairspray was the one that got me hooked. It was a combination of the songs, performances, and just the pure joy that the show gives off that got me into seeing musicals regularly after that.

I grew up in a remote place where I'd never have a hope of a sniff of a musical so they weren't on my radar. I did enjoy acting myself though and studied it at college. There I remember seeing a very capable performance by two other students of Tonight from West Side Story, which got me thinking I may enjoy musicals. I saw a touring production of Cats shortly after which I enjoyed but wasn't hugely moved by.

I worked in a theatre for a while where I saw a few but it was when I saw Les Miserables during the 2010 tour that my life was changed forever! And of course since moving to London I've seen a whole lot more.

The Phantom of the Opera UK Tour - May 1999 - Liverpool Empire.
Sat in the front stalls in absolute fear from the signs dotted around detailing 'gunshots and loud noises', cowering with my fingers in my ears during the Prologue until the Overture began and my hands dropped in amazement and I was hooked for the rest of the evening - and the rest of my life.

I have said it before but I was taken to the theatre every year by my parents & a friend of my dad & his wife. We always went to musicals. - Blitz, Charlie Girl, Annie Get your gun. Also we started going to amdram productions in Kilburn. - I especially remember Brigadoon. Later I was given the choice for my birthday - a party or theatre. I always chose to go & see Brian Rix at the Garrick. I also remember seeing "Sleuth".