ALW's The Illusionist (Dir. Jamie Lloyd)

Just imagining it would be good, let along reimagining. I don't think Richard Eyre brought any directorial take. Perhaps he wasn't allowed to though.

There's a joy about the music in 'By Jeeves' that had me (for a while) thinking ...is this actually his best score?  'It's A Pig' is just consummate musical theatre writing, of the old school that seems more popular now.  Yes, should be more productions of it - I just don't like the jokey 'poor theatre' approach in the USA video, but that's also even more popular now, with the 'Goes Wrong' franchise.

Can’t wait to see how he recycles Live Never Dies/Our Kind of Love for a new show! Praying for some rap too… to make it cool and connect with Gen Z

Yes!  I'd forgotten this, from reading the original Steven Millhauser short story last night; but get this from the final two paragraphs:

"Six officers leapt onto the stage and attempted to seize Eisenheim, who looked at them with an expression of such melancholy that one policeman felt a shadow pass over his heart.....From the crowd rose the sound of a great inrush of breath as Eisenheim began his unthinkable final act....some claimed to see, as he dissolved before their eyes, a look of fearful exaltation. Others said that at the end he raised his face and uttered a cry of icy desolation".

They then go ransacking Eisenheim's apartment: "In the Devil's Factory trick mirrors were found, exquisite cabinets with secret panels"

In the short story there is a small boy (Elis) that the illusionist conjures up - the description reminiscent of Gustav in 'Love Never Dies': "Many commented on the striking contrast between the angelic boy and the dark, brooding magician".

The short story was first published in 1990 (after 'Phantom', before 'Love Never Dies'), it has very few twists and turns of plot - it's more a mood piece. The plot heavy romance and skullduggery belong to the film. But in short story and film it's not impossible to think that the ALW musical of 'The Phantom Of The Opera' had an influence, unwittingly or not - it's been a huge part of popular culture whether you like the piece or not.

So much to catch up in a day on this thread

Steven Ward - as an American I didn't know anything about the story and reading the notes and listening to the recording many times I still can't quite figure out what it was about. Take that for what its worth... A pity because "Hopeless when it comes to you" was damn well one of his finest songs that lyrics, music and plot seemed perfectly aligned. But from what I remember, people said it was a waste since the character really was a secondary one to the entire plot (kind of like the Mistress in Evita "Another suitcase in another hall...")

By Jeeves - again, speaking as an American who never knew anything about the Jeeves stories this was an incredible amount of fun and such an evening of simple joy post-9/11/01 on broadway. Still love to listen to that recording and its definitely in the enjoying theatre simply for entertainment. Prefer that to any jukebox musical any day.

Love Never Dies - its hysterical to think that The illusionist is a similar story. Maybe he will simply recycle the whole score from LND

Not sure if Cinderella could be blamed on a bad 2023. He was ready to premiere it in 2020. If anything, the death of his son no doubt - and the subsequent (and unnecessary closing) of POTO were what colored that year for him. Happy that the year ended on a much more positive note with Sunset conquering the West End and now two previews out already lighting up this side of the Atlantic

I believe not. But according to Tim Rice in his autobiography, the tune was already recycled from an unreleased pop song they wrote together in the sixties!

I actually would have loved to have seen Steven Ward on stage, I think parts of that score are some of Webbers best. Pity I don’t think it will ever see the light of day again.

There's definitely a small section of it in the verse of this song from 'Cricket' (once you've got past the piano intro of 'Anything But Lonely'). 

I used to have a bootleg (on cassette) of Cricket and it was so cool to hear early versions of stuff that ended up in Sunset and Aspects. Pity in one of those box collections ALW released he never did a Sydmonton Festivals release of all those workshops. I mean its only his hardest core fans who buy those collections, I would imagine there would be a market for that among us for those things.

as for Stephen Ward am I mis-remembering that ALW did a re-staging of a revision of that at The OTher Palace for 4 or 5 performances?

This is off topic, but I'd love to see a video of Sydmonton's "TWiW", I know there must be one in existence since a tiny clip from it was shown here by none other than the Maestro himself (starting at 1:35):

I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I actually happen to have both the bootleg, which is really lousy quality indeed, and the demo, which is actually pretty decent.

Also, the last track of the Cricket Demo (the 10th), which is mostly instrumental (apart from the short final choral reprise, that would later become "Anything but Lonely" in AoL), consists of "As If We Never Said Goodbye" theme (but that's no surprise) AND a few bars of the theme that would later become the song from the ending credits of "The Phantom of the Opera"-2004 ("Learn to be Lonely"), as performed by Minnie Driver.
Just a few bars that would later become the "Never dreamed out in the world There are arms to hold you" lines in LtbL, but they are there, without a doubt.

It's really interesting to witness how ALW's musical ideas evolved over time, sometimes taking more than a decade, like in this case (Cricket is 1986 and "Learn to be Lonely" was written, as I've already stated, for the 2004 screen adaptation of PotO).

And also you can hear snippets of "The Ballad of Billy McCaw" theme from 'Cats' (which I really like, btw) all over the Demo. Apart from various themes from SB and AoL, obviously.