ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER: "I fell in love with Perseus instantly."
"When I was around seven,
"I asked if I could take him on a lead to Thurloe Square."
"Both Mum and Granny said yes."
"How trusting parents were in those days!"
"So I became a regular spectacle,
"walking Perseus like a dog
"across the old zebra crossing...
"..that led to the train station...
"..and the only bit of greenery Julian and I knew."
MUSIC: Memory from Cats
Cats have always had a special place in the life of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
It was the family cat, Perseus, and the poems of TS Eliot
that inspired the hit musical
loved by audiences round the world.
What's going on here? What is happening here?
He's a big thug, this cat.
And like all thugs, he becomes a pussycat when anybody is near him.
Andrew has turned 70.
And to mark the occasion, he's written a memoir.
# Memory
# All alone in the moonlight
# I can smile at the old days
# I was beautiful then
# I remember the time I knew what happiness was
# Let the memory
# Live again. #
Andrew Lloyd Webber's autobiography is a candid account of his childhood
and the early influences that led to a string of hit musicals.
From make-believe shows he created with brother Julian...
"Ten glorious hit musicals." "Ten glorious hit musicals."
..to the legendary hits he wrote with Tim Rice.
And that was when Argentina happened.
And I remember saying to Tim, "I think I've got a way in."
# All through my wild days
# My mad existence
# I kept my promise
# Don't keep your distance... #
MUSIC: Phantom of the Opera Overture
Phantom of the Opera is celebrating a birthday too.
It's been running for 30 years,
making it the longest-running Broadway musical of all time.
With two big birthdays to mark, this is a perfect moment to look back.
So, what prompted you to write this book?
I have to say, I'm terribly boring.
I mean, I really...
I wrote, in truth, in my preface, that Andrew Lloyd Webber
is the most boring person that I've ever written about.
So were you unmask...
Was it a kind of confessional, then, as well?
Yes, it's a sort of confessional.
I mean, because I think one of the things is
that one's career is not always up.
I mean, there are many bumps along the way. But I...
Explain yourself. I'm explaining myself
by saying that I know quite a few things that
probably I shouldn't really ever print.
But, luckily, I've been able to be, I think,
as truthful as I can remember.
The problem is memory, isn't it, you know?
Not the song, my brain.
I hope I've got things right.
70 years ago, bomb-damaged and down-at-heel,
London was slowly recovering from the Blitz.
Andrew's mother, Jean, taught the piano
at the Royal College of Music in South Kensington,
and it was here that she met a young composer called William.
They married in 1942.
Lloyd Webber sounds like some posh derivation of some sort.
There is no posh derivation at all.
It was that my father became known as a composer as "Lloyd Webber"
and it just stuck as the family name.
Well, the story of your childhood, the first sentence in your book is,
"Before me there was Mimi."
Yes, Mimi, a monkey.
Mimi didn't like me, apparently.
Apparently attacked my mother's tummy.
Therefore, I'm able to say that she was the first person
to take a huge dislike to me. And she had to be got rid of.
When was she got rid of?
Well, presumably before I was born.
My mother used to go around South Kensington, where we lived,
round the back of South Kensington station,
with this monkey on her shoulder.
And goodness knows what everybody thought.
After Mimi came Andrew, who was born in 1948.
The family lived in a mansion flat in Harrington Court,
which they shared with Jean's mother, Granny Molly.
Here she is on the roof with Mimi.
Granny basically kept the family. I mean, she paid for everything
out of the little bit of money that she had,
because my dad didn't earn any money from anything much. I mean,
he was professor of composition at the Royal College of Music,
but he wasn't earning a lot of money.
So I think she really, more or less, kept everything afloat.
So this is home?
This, on the top floor, somewhere in the middle up there,
just towards the end, there, was our flat.
On the top floor, what it then was,
because they've put these rather smart-looking penthouse,
I suppose they probably call them, on the top of it.
But it was... It's very different to what it was then.
So it looks like that's it.
Yes, it would be. And it had a balcony.
Outside of the place looks exactly the same, apart from the top of it.
I'm quite pleased to see, now that bus has moved,
that the greengrocer that used to be there is still there.
Oh, that's funny. So that's the one,
that must be the one family business that's survived.
And it was pretty much all of this bit,
South Kensington station itself...
There used to be an Italian restaurant there.
That's pretty much as it was when I was a kid.
In fact, it's almost exactly the same.
A few years later, the family at Harrington Court expanded to six,
with the arrival of a Siamese cat called Perseus,
and a second son called Julian.
The words Harrington Court suggest quite a posh environment.
No.
There was a lift there that never worked.
A completely broken-down old lift, which stank of pee most of the time.
You see, in those days, there were no entry phones,
so you could just walk straight in the place.
And people did.
We're in already. Right.
OK, so which floor?
Well, we were on the fourth floor,
but I think they've got an extra floor now on it.
Five. It wasn't like this.
It was one of those big, open lifts that, you know,
you put your hand out, you'd get your hand chopped off.
Well, Julian told me what this lift was like.
He said it had a smell.
Well, I... Yes, you say...
that he said that.
I don't remember it, really, particularly smelling,
but maybe Julian has a better nose than I.
Shall we get out? Shall we get out?
I don't think this level existed.
So where do we go from here? Do you recognise any of this?
Well, no, I mean, it's not as I remember at all.
I don't believe...
After you. This didn't exist.
I mean, it couldn't be more different.
The roomy mansion flats have long gone,
and have been converted into luxury serviced apartments.
But in the Lloyd Webbers' day, it was a place filled with music,
and under the influence of their parents both brothers started young.
Is that the first instrument your mother placed in your hands, really?
Well, that... We're not looking at that, actually.
Why not? No, we don't really approve of that.
Why don't we approve of it? That's me on the front of Nursery World,
when my mum insisted on my playing the violin.
So she tried to get you to play the violin?
Yeah, yeah, she tried to turn me into a protege, you see?
And then, thank God, Julian turned up.
Thank heavens Julian turned up, yes.
Now, look, here you are... That's Julian and me. ..with Julian.
You see, that was the only really outside space we had.
So Julian's taken with, I suppose it would be a quarter-sized cello.
I mean, God help us if we'd got Britain's Got Talent in those days
with my mother around.
CELLO SCALES
I was four when I got a cello.
He says three in the book.
That's a little exaggeration, you know.
Because you can't do much with a cello at three, to be honest.
I saw this cello in a concert I was taken to at Festival Hall,
and I asked if I could play that,
thinking that I'd be allowed to give up the piano
if I took up a different instrument.
So, yeah, I was four when I saw the cello.
And I really loved playing it. I enjoyed it.
I never went near the piano unless I was forced to,
but I just used to like sitting with a cello
and trying to get a decent sound out of it,
which took a few years, I must say.
Andrew did take up the piano, somewhat reluctantly.
His piano teacher, mother Jean, was a strict disciplinarian
when it came to her children's music lessons.
But Andrew had other ideas.
She had to give up on me pretty early because...
I did learn the piano with her, but,
anyway, she soon realised that I had another interest in my life,
which was... Well, it was, in those days, ruined buildings.
I remember I took a trip up to Doncaster,
and then from there I made my way across to Hull,
and up to Beverley where the marvellous minster is.
And then I made my way up through Whitby
and up then to Newcastle,
and then back to London again,
over a school half-term.
And, you know, there was me with my little suitcase,
and I was only, like, 14.
I mean, staying in, you know, B&Bs, and nobody batted an eyelid.
I mean, I don't think you'd let a kid go round today.
As well as trips alone,
Andrew dragged his family into his burgeoning interest
in England's national heritage.
And we... Every holiday, I used to take him
to see these places. We got stuck in lanes and fields,
and I think I got to know every ancient ruin in the country.
If you open this Pandora-like box here,
you'll discover my early literary efforts.
He wasn't just a seasoned traveller at the age of 14,
but the writer of a travel journal.
The descriptions of the old buildings are neatly typed up
and the photographs pasted in.
And, yes, he's kept them to this day.
Can I hold it? You can, yes, yes.
"A survey of the ruined castles open to the public in Glamorgan."
You see, this... "The author of".
I love the way you're good at promotion.
The author of Ancient Monuments in England and Wales,
Ancient Monuments in the Home Counties,
and Roman Remains in England and Wales.
People would like to know that!
I'm sure. Then, you've got Welsh border castles.
This is a pretty thick tome.
A hefty one. Look at this -
this is big stuff here.
But that's not all he was up to.
A love for another kind of architecture was blossoming -
the theatre.
I mean, I remember going around the bombsites and, you know,
going to school and seeing bombed buildings and things,
even in the late '50s.
I mean, I remember getting into the Bedford in Camden Town
and there was a hole in the roof. I've got the pictures I took of it.
And it made a really profound impression on me.
EXPLOSION, AIR-RAID SIREN
Dozens of theatres were damaged or lost during the Blitz.
But unlike the Bedford,
London's most popular theatre escaped unscathed.
Come up and see me sometime.
I'm Dame Clod.
Like any kid, I think I was taken to the Palladium pantomime
and thought it was wonderful.
And I think, again, sort of,
the feeling of that sort of Victorian building...
The whole thing just captivated me.
MUSIC: Wouldn't it Be Loverly? from My Fair Lady
# All I want is a room somewhere
# Far away from the cold night air
# With one enormous chair
# Now, wouldn't it be loverly? #
My Fair Lady came to London,
and of course everybody had to go and see My Fair Lady,
so I was taken to a matinee.
I loved it and I said to... It was my granny who took me to it,
I said, "I'd very much like to hear something else."
And it was the same time that Gigi was coming out,
so I was slunk in, because I think Gigi was an A certificate.
And that wonderful overture, which is just extraordinary.
# That since the world began
# No woman or a man
# Has ever been as happy as we are
# Tonight! #
But also, almost exactly at the same time,
West Side Story came to London, and I was taken to that too.
I thought, "Well, this is the most fantastic world."
# Immigrant goes to America
# Many hellos in America
# Nobody knows in America
# Puerto Rico's in America! #
Trips to see these new American musicals
cemented a passion for melody in Andrew Lloyd Webber -
something he shared with his father.
William was a professor at the Royal College of Music,
but his secret love was writing melodies -
like this one.
Dad always remembers
being played Some Enchanted Evening for the first time.
And Dad played it to me because he saw me
getting so obsessed with musicals and everything.
Go on, sing Some Enchanted Evening. I don't think we really want that.
Yes, we do. Well, we can play it...
# La da da da-da dum... #
CRACKLY VINYL RECORDING: # Some enchanted evening
# You may meet a stranger
# You'll meet a stranger across a crowded room... #
It's that...
PLAYS "SOME ENCHANTED EVENING" MELODY
Rogers loved the tritone.
And he does it in a...
Doesn't he? But, Rogers, I mean, that outpouring of melody.
I'm sorry, what anybody may say, that to me...
Melody is, I think, the thing that really, really gets me.
And I'm afraid that I was as taken by my father
with Some Enchanted Evening. Which I think, I still think,
is the greatest song ever written for a musical.
MUSIC: Some Enchanted Evening
While American musicals dominated London's West End,
it was television that brought them into the sitting-room
at Harrington Court.
Ironically for me, television is how I saw these theatres.
Sunday Night at the London Palladium, yes.
I mean, you saw shots of the audience
and then the famous London Palladium revolve,
which used to go at the end of the programme
with everybody waving goodbye.
I mean, of course, that made a huge impression.
Andrew brought the magic and glamour of the Palladium
into the living room of the Harrington Road flat.
With the help of Julian, he built a miniature theatre,
for which he wrote no less than ten hit musicals.
"Ten GLORIOUS hit musicals." Ten glorious hit musicals.
I don't think anybody ever has come up with that kind of collection.
I mean, really, following The Land of Twart with The Queen of Sheba,
I mean... It hasn't been done.
He called it the Pavilion Empire Variety,
and even typed up theatre programmes
to accompany the - ahem - productions.
I mean, it was a sort of Victorian variety house, basically.
With the most massive stage you've ever seen,
compared to the actual auditorium.
And it was put together with...?
It was sort of toy bricks, and it had a kind of tea tray of a roof.
And it was then all painted... It was very gold,
and there were lots of wallpaper samples I got from Sanderson's.
Mostly wallpaper that looked as if
it should be in an Indian restaurant.
How much space did it take up? Oh... From about here to the end...
It was the whole nursery.
I mean, it wasn't half measures.
Nobody else could get in there.
Lovely make-believe soldiers filled up the audience so that, you know,
box office never, never, ever wavered.
My career has absolutely taken a dump since those days.
Oh! Let's have a look.
Yeah, this is definitely a level up from where we were.
We would have been a floor below this, as it used to be.
Because I remember one could look straight into
the windows of the hotel over there.
Do you know, I'd never been in the hotel in my life,
until we went for this programme today.
Never been in it. There's a rather nice view
of the Natural History Museum from up here, isn't there? Yes.
And the old Imperial Institute.
Incredible view, because actually you can see St Paul's Cathedral.
Yeah. Now that's something I never knew before.
If we'd got up on our roof, we could have done that.
But it's... It'd have been rather nice if we'd had this view.
That's been pedestrianised, but I would imagine...
That's all been pedestrianised,
that was where the cat used to walk with me.
There used to be a pedestrian crossing down there...
Ah, that's it there, yeah. And then we'd walk down past
where the underground sign is,
down Thurloe Place, and Thurloe Square is just beyond.
So that's where Perseus...
So that is the route that Perseus would take.
Taking Perseus for walks round Kensington Gardens,
trips to the theatre, and building one of your own,
sounds like an idyllic childhood.
And in some ways, it was.
But life at Harrington Court was about to change
when eight-year-old Julian brought home a fellow pupil
from the Royal College of Music, where he was studying.
I got to know John Lill.
We were playing in the junior department orchestra
and I got talking to him and mentioned him to my mother.
And he was the big star student. He was seven years older than me.
And we invited... I invited him back.
He said, "My mother wants to invite you for lunch."
And I was a bit shy, a bit reluctant.
But, in the end, I said, "OK, that would be very nice indeed,
"thank you." And that's when I met the family.
Julian's mother, Jean, took a special interest in John.
She'd dedicated her life to teaching music and helping young talent,
a passion born out of a childhood tragedy.
She was a very serious-minded classical musician.
And all her training was that, and all her interest was that.
And she had, really, it has to be said,
a kind of obsession about young male talent.
And I think it came because of the very premature death
of her elder brother, who was drowned at sea.
PIANO MUSIC PLAYS
The brother was called Alistair, and he died aged 18.
And I think that when John Lill came along,
this was like a godsend to her,
because here was someone, you know,
who was a fabulous pianist and from a very, very poor background,
and absolutely in the mould of the kind of person she wanted to help.
ORCHESTRA PLAYS
Jean's help even extended to moving John into the family home.
She lavished a huge amount of attention and care and concern
about my playing. And she'd move the earth to help me.
It was extremely...generous of her and, well,
I was often embarrassed by the degree of kindness
she and her husband showed.
And my mother really sort of took him in and he became like her son.
I mean, she really, really, really just lived for John Lill.
Did you feel slightly sort of left out of things?
Well, I did, I did feel that we had an older brother now
who was not really ours. I mean, I liked John a lot, but...
No, I sort of felt that, certainly in my mother's eyes,
that he was the one and he was the favourite.
"Towards the close of the Easter holidays, I was deeply depressed.
"Mum's John Lill obsession
"was making her increasingly moody and erratic."
"Home was a cauldron of overwrought emotion and jealousy.
"My adolescent hormones told me I'd had enough."
"One morning, I headed for the underground station.
"I bought a one-way ticket."
I'd taken the old underground out to as far as it went to in Essex
and, I think it was Ongar station, I saw a bus going to Lavenham.
And I thought, this is the end,
I'm really going to go into a hedge somewhere
and just take all these pills I'd collected up.
"The ancient bus trundled through the Essex countryside,
"and as we hit Suffolk, the sun came out."
"By the time we arrived at Lavenham,
"an overcast morning had turned into a glorious spring day."
"Lavenham. I'd never seen such an unspoiled English village before."
"But it was the church that did it. All I remember now
"is sitting inside for what must have been two hours
"and saying, 'Thank God for Lavenham.' "
So I changed my mind very, very quickly, and all was well.
And you wrote about... Yes.
..what was, could have been a suicide attempt?
Well, it was. It was a suicide attempt.
I remember reading the letter he wrote his mother,
that he was going to put an end to his life.
And it wasn't very pleasant reading, especially for her,
as you can imagine.
Andrew learned to live with his adopted brother,
and grew to like him.
But mother Jean was right about one thing -
John Lill was unquestionably talented, and went on to win
the International Tchaikovsky Prize for piano at just 26.
ENTHUSIASTIC APPLAUSE
During these trying teenage years, Andrew needed an escape.
And he found one.
In Weymouth Street in Marylebone, home to his mum's sister, Auntie Vi.
You could not invent Auntie Vi.
Central Casting could not come up with Auntie Vi.
She was possibly, without any question or doubt,
the funniest and also the rudest person I've ever met in my life.
And I absolutely adored her.
And you've even dedicated the book to Auntie Vi. Yes, hard not to.
Hard not to dedicate a book to somebody who once said,
"Too many cocks spoil the breath."
Auntie Vi gained minor notoriety writing a series of cookbooks.
One was so risque she published it under a male pen-name, Rodney Spoke.
It was inspired by the comedy of the time.
What can we do for you? Well, actually, I'm looking for a pet.
Oh...
There's Cyril, he's half and half, you know.
LAUGHTER
Half King Charles spaniel, half fox terrier.
We call him a Fox Cocker.
She decided that she wanted to write a gay cookbook.
Now, I suppose... You see, at that time,
you had Kenneth Williams and you had all that Polari
and all of that, Round The Horne, and it was all really quite funny.
Recipes on offer included coq-up,
ducky a l'orange,
seedy queen cakes,
and poof pastry.
It is screamingly funny,
and she was very much the one who kind of freed me, I guess.
# Food, glorious food... #
Astonishingly, Andrew was just 17 when he went in search of an agent.
Such was his determination to make it as a musical composer,
he soon found one.
Desmond Elliott not only took Andrew on but had a musical project too.
Called The Likes Of Us, it was about the children's charity Barnardo's,
and was an attempt to cash in on the current hit of the time, Oliver.
MUSIC: Consider Yourself from Oliver
Now all Andrew needed was a lyricist.
I'm going to read you your letter.
"Dear Andrew, I have been given your address
"by Desmond Elliott of Arlington Books,
"who I believe has told you of my existence.
"Mr Elliott told me that you were looking for a with-it writer
"of lyrics for your songs.
"I wondered if you'd consider it worth your while meeting me.
"I may fall far short of your requirements,
"but anyway it would be interesting to meet up.
"Hoping to hear from you, yours, Tim Rice."
Well, Andrew was already working on this musical called The Likes Of Us,
which was about the life of Dr Barnardo,
and it had some great tunes in it, but it was very derivative,
not melodically, but style of...
a cross between Lionel Bart, primarily,
I would say, and Richard Rogers.
And it kind of went...
HE PLAYS JAUNTY TUNE
It was one of that sort of...
It was a real Broadway number, but...
# Da da da-da... #
But I was rather pleased with that.
There was one which we used in the Barnardo song, which went...
SIMPLE TUNE PLAYED SMOOTHLY
This was done as a kind of a Russ Conway...
TUNE REPEATED WITH MORE COMPLEXITY
Like that, you know? And so, I, we...
There were quite a few in there.
And I knew by then, academic career was not for me.
# In your life you can see Just how sad you can be
# If you stay by yourself all alone... #
In the autumn of 1965, Andrew Lloyd Webber
started at Magdalen College, Oxford, to study history.
He was there just one term,
spending most of it agonising over the prospect
of three years away from Tim and his music.
In December, Andrew called his father to say he was returning home.
# ..You can never make it alone... #
It was rather a difficult time,
and I think lots of other people were more disappointed than I was,
because I felt that, with Andrew,
that it would be quite hopeless
if you tried to make him do something he didn't want to do.
It would only just come back on him and oneself.
So I played it as coolly as possible.
There followed quite a serious family row afterwards,
with both my mother and grandmother saying, this is absolutely terrible,
he's ruined his life, what a ridiculous thing to do,
he's never going to make any money out of music - ha-ha!
And, you know, my father was saying, well, look,
that's where his interests lie, he's talented, he can write tunes,
you've got to let him do it.
Andrew returned to the crowded hothouse atmosphere
of Harrington Court.
With John Lill and Granny Molly still living there, space was tight.
The family decided to rent the flat next door.
There was a spare bedroom going,
so it made sense for Tim to move in too.
So, that's your dad. Yes, that's my dad.
That looks like Julian. That's John Lill. That must be me.
And that's my mother. You seem to be a bit stuck for space, don't you?
Yes. I just don't know where...
It looks rather cramped! I think it must have been our kitchen.
That's Julian with his hand on, sort of pushing John Lill away.
Yes.
I took that. I don't know what we were doing.
We were just having a fight or something.
It's a great picture.
It was just a bit chaotic.
And it took me a while to get used to people padding around
with no shoes on and, you know...
It was just... It was fun.
It was a bit like living in a student flat with grown-ups,
which was weird.
But it was a bit of a madhouse, to tell you the truth.
But I felt very sorry for nearby neighbours.
But they didn't seem to complain.
Perhaps they'd all been driven deaf - who knows?
It was completely bohemian.
There were lots of girlfriends around,
in various states of undress, you know?
And our grandmother in the middle of all this.
It was bizarre.
With such a racket going on,
it's a miracle that Andrew and Tim emerged
with their first musical success.
Did you do any work here, during that period?
Yeah, I'd do a bit of writing here. I mean, we had the piano,
which we sort of shared.
But, yes, I would have done quite a bit of Joseph here.
And...so the original sketches of Joseph and everything would have,
without doubt, have been done here at Harrington Court.
# May I return May I return
# To the beginning? #
In the spring of 1967, Andrew and Tim were approached
by a local music teacher to write something
for a concert at Colet Court School.
They'd spent a year writing The Likes Of Us,
but it was going nowhere.
# We are still waiting... #
Writing for a bunch of school kids was hardly the dream,
but they agreed.
# Any dream will do. #
Tim thought it was a bit of a come-down, to put it mildly,
because our West End debut was not going to be.
And to then do something in a school
was not exactly what we thought was going to be our launch on the world.
# Such a dazzling coat of many colours
# How I love my coat of many colours... #
Stuck for inspiration, they turned to a children's book
of Bible stories, and decided on Tim's favourite -
the revenge and forgiveness story of Joseph and his coat of many colours.
Well, originally, Joseph -
talk about starting on the button - started as...
# Way, way back, many centuries ago. #
It just even started like that - straight in with the children.
And then eventually we wrote, I did the big fanfare...
But of the coat of many colours, you know... # Joseph...
# He was Jacob's favourite son
# Of all the family, Joseph was the special one... #
That's, again, Tim getting into the story immediately,
knowing that he had to engage those children
and we couldn't have any fat anywhere.
# Jacob, Jacob, Jacob
# Jacob and sons. #
And Andrew kept coming up with wonderful tunes.
I'd say, "We need a tune for the coat,"
and Andrew writes this wonderful tune.
It was a pleasure to stick words onto them.
And writing allegedly funny words,
I've always found much easier
and much quicker than writing romantic words.
And there weren't any romantic songs as such in Joseph,
but there were a couple of fairly serious songs.
But we did have Close Every Door To Me.
# Hide all the world from me Bar all my windows... #
I've always...
I've always felt, you know, that that is the heart of Joseph.
And, despite everything else that's going on around it,
all the fun and everything, that's the central moment of it, I think.
The 1st of March 1968 was dull, grey and wet -
the day Joseph was first performed.
The audience loved it and demanded a repeat performance.
Among the parents was a Sunday Times journalist who was so impressed,
he gave Joseph a glowing review.
And Derek Jewell reviewed it.
Yeah, he was great... He said, "It was fresh as paint,
"irresistibly melodic, clever beyond mere wittiness."
His son was at the school and he'd come along,
and he was so taken with it, he reviewed it in the Sunday Times,
which meant that we had record companies and music publishers
keen to find out about it.
One year later, in 1969, Joseph was released as an album.
# I closed my eyes
# Drew back the curtain... #
It did poor business, but proved to be the calling card
that attracted the attention of an agent producer called David Land.
He offered the pair a three-year writing deal.
While the Old Testament story of Joseph launched Lloyd Webber
and Tim Rice's careers, the New Testament and a Bob Dylan song
would be the inspiration for what they would do next.
Bob Dylan, who I was a very early fan of -
I'd even been to see him way before he went electric -
and they did With God On Our Side on television,
and it really, I thought,
"Wow, this is a fantastic song,"
and beautifully sung and a very powerful lyric.
It had that line, "Did Judas Iscariot have God on his side?"
A great line.
# Did Judas Iscariot have God on his side? #
That made me think that you can write songs about people like Judas.
Tim's fascination with Judas gave them the way in.
Now they had the story, Andrew set about writing the music.
Jesus Christ Superstar, it's constructed
to the very, very last bar.
Only through the construction of the music and the storytelling
could we engage an audience.
And I think maybe that's my kind of architectural interest again,
you know, coming through. I think the construction of a musical,
the actual architecture of a musical is the most important thing.
When we got to the moment of the money lenders in the temple,
and we have, you know...
HE HUMS THE MELODY
It's in 7/8 time, so it's... One, two, three, four, one, two, three...
And it's very deliberate, because if it had been...
How boring would that be?
Right. So it was very...
What it does is it immediately gets it going...
And I love using time signatures
like seven and five and things in places,
because it just keeps something dramatic.
# Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ
# Who are you, what have you sacrificed? #
Like Joseph, Jesus Christ Superstar started life as an album.
But at first, it didn't take off.
It wasn't a big hit, that's true.
We didn't get a hit single in England.
We got to number 39 or something.
I was slightly surprised, actually,
because it sounded good on the radio.
But in America, whoosh! You know, it was extraordinary.
# Tell me what you think about your friends at the top
# Who'd you think, besides yourself, was the pick of the crop? #
The success of the album in the US
led to a summons from the pop promoter Robert Stigwood -
the man behind the careers of Eric Clapton,
the Bee Gees and David Bowie.
On the table was both a Broadway AND a movie deal for Superstar.
They could hardly say no.
INTRO PLAYS
Jesus Christ Superstar opened on Broadway in October 1971.
But while the angels that adorned both the album and posters
would become the first mega-logo in musical theatre history,
the Broadway audience were turned off,
as Christians took offence and accused the show of blasphemy.
I think what annoyed them, funnily enough,
was the concept of rock music,
which was associated with drugs and sex and all these evil things -
that being associated with Jesus was the problem,
not so much what it said.
When the show opened in London the following year,
there were no protests,
and despite the cool reception of the album in the UK,
the stage version was a massive hit.
Everyone loved it.
Even the composer Shostakovich loved it.
He saw the show two nights running, and confessed that,
but for Joseph Stalin, he would have written similar work.
MUSIC: Superstar
The movie of Superstar started filming, and Andrew got married.
He'd met Sarah Hugill when she was 16.
She turned 18 in 1972, the year they chose to tie the knot.
# Oh, what a circus Oh, what a show... #
As Prime Minister, I want to speak to you
simply and plainly about the grave emergency
now facing our country.
The idea for their next project was born during the early '70s,
when the IRA stalked the mainland
and Britain was crippled by strikes and economic meltdown.
Britain in 1974, it was not a particularly nice place to be.
I mean, we'd just come out of the three-day week,
then the stock market sort of absolutely collapsed,
and the IRA were blowing up London and cities all around the place.
It was a time that I don't believe people really think happened.
Tim Rice was driving one day.
On the car radio was programme about the actress Eva Peron.
Eva Peron, in that old cinema cliche, went from rags to riches.
The man she captured, Peron, became the boss of Argentina.
And not content merely to be his wife,
Eva Peron manoeuvred her way past an oligarchy which hated her
to become the most powerful woman Latin America has ever known.
And I'd got a vague idea who she was,
I remembered her from my stamp collection as a kid.
And I heard this radio programme and I thought, "This is a great story."
The parallels between the trade union-led revolution
that swept Peron to power in 1946 and the industrial unrest
that gripped '70s Britain struck a chord.
The thought that an extremist could get power in a democracy was
very, very much uppermost, certainly in MY mind,
and I thought of Evita as a really interesting cautionary tale.
I thought, I've got to find some angle on this, musically,
that means that I can say to Tim,
"Yes, I think I know how I can do this."
And I thought about it for a long time,
and I remembered, just after I left school,
I went to see Judy Garland in The Talk Of The Town,
and it was pretty much the last thing she ever did,
I think it might even have been the last performance she ever gave.
Anyway, she was drunk, she was out of it, you know,
the audience turned on her.
And she tried to sing Over The Rainbow,
and it was like seeing a little bird crushed in front of you.
It was just awful.
And I thought, if I can find a melody or situation
where I could create an anthem for Eva Peron that could turn on her,
and I could use it in a completely different way,
then I'm on the case.
And I remember, in Bristol, it was, that I was writing, I wrote...
And that is when Argentina happened.
I remember saying to Tim, "I think I've got a way in."
# All through my wild days
# My mad existence... #
Like Joseph and Jesus Christ Superstar,
they started by releasing a concept album.
Julie Covington sang the title song.
We never thought that Don't Cry For Me Argentina had a hope as a single,
because it was five minutes long,
Julie Covington was not an automatic record seller.
But the single came out and was a massive success,
um, to our surprise.
# And as for fortune and as for fame... #
As Evita rose up the charts, Lloyd Webber sent a copy
to the only director he felt was up to the job of staging the story -
the legendary Hal Prince.
I've always thought that unusual settings, unusual subjects,
the sort of thing that people say, "Wait a minute, is that a musical?"
and then you give them that and it's unexpected and they respond.
# Don't cry for me, Argentina... #
Nicknamed the Prince of Broadway,
Hal Prince boasted a string of credits
that included West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, and Cabaret.
Hal assumed they'd already found their lead actress,
after the success of Julie Covington's hit single.
We thought she'd be perfect to play Eva, but she didn't want to do it.
Which actually, in the end, was a plus,
because we then got enormous publicity,
the press love disaster, so it was, you know, "Julie turns down Evita."
You know, implying that the show was going to be a total disaster.
And how did you find Elaine?
Well, the normal procedure of auditions.
We had huge...
..interest in it. And literally hundreds of ladies came along,
some of them quite well-known.
The audition period for me for Evita was LONG and tedious.
I must have auditioned eight, nine, I don't know, ten times.
Everybody - the world and his wife - auditioned for this role.
You know, many of them were very good but, you know, it's difficult.
And of course we... They all sang Don't Cry For Me Argentina.
Faye Dunaway, Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand,
all these names were being bandied about.
# Peron, Peron, Peron, Peron Evita, Evita... #
Elaine Paige made the final shortlist of three.
She just got through on merit, like the cup final.
She got through all the rounds and saw off the opposition.
My doorbell went about midnight and, to my surprise, it was my agent.
"The role of..."
"Yes, yes, yes, get on with it, Libby!"
"..Eva Peron is..."
"Yes, yes, just tell me!"
"..yours."
# Evita. #
OK. Here we go.
# Don't cry for me, Argentina... #
Evita opened in London in June 1978,
but the cautionary tale about economic crisis and the fragility of
democracy failed to resonate when it opened on Broadway a year later.
"Stench is a stench on any scale." That's the first sentence.
And they go on...
"If you want to fill the coffers of these two amoral,
"barely talented whippersnappers" - this refers to you and Tim -
"and their knowing or duped accomplices,
"by all means see this artfully produced monument
"to human indecency."
Well, that's not a very good review, really, is it?
Well, he's an idiot. What can I say?
The Americans had no clue of the context in which Evita was written.
I mean, Britain nearly fell apart, and people forget that.
But we opened in September,
and it was that Christmas that Russia invaded Afghanistan.
And you started to hear people talking about politics again
in America. But something happened in the zeitgeist,
and by the time the Tonys happened, eight months later,
I mean, Evita was the toast of the town.
# Don't cry for me, Argentina... #
Evita garnered award after award,
including an Olivier for Best Musical in 1978.
Now, the winner is...
Oh, my nerves!
..Evita.
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
The ceremony was badly organised,
and during his acceptance speech, Lloyd Webber quipped that Hal Prince
would have made a much better job of the Oliviers
than that year's producer.
Unbeknownst to Andrew, the producer was Cameron Mackintosh who,
up to this point, he'd never met.
I was furious! And I went after him...
"I'm going to kill him." And I bump into David Land, who's the wonderful
agent who had Tim and Andrew under his wing, and I said,
"David, where's Andrew, where's Andrew?!"
He said, "You're looking for Andrew?" "Yes, I want to kill him."
"I want to kill him!"
And he went, "No, no, no, no, no, don't do that."
I said, "Why not?" He said, "Because you'll make a few bob out of him."
MUSIC: Theme Tune to Thomas The Tank Engine
David Land's advice to Cameron was prophetic.
Just a year earlier, Andrew had parted company with Robert Stigwood
to take ownership of both the creative and commercial control
of future productions.
The name of Lloyd Webber's new company
was inspired by another childhood passion - Thomas The Tank Engine.
It was called The Really Useful company.
So Cameron's decision to forgive Andrew's slight at the Oliviers
was probably the shrewdest of his career.
I got a sweet letter from Andrew afterwards
saying, "I'm really sorry." And then cut to, I think, 1980,
and Andrew said, would I like
to come and have lunch with him at the Savile Club?
So, we met at one o'clock,
and at half-past six, my secretary was phoning the Savile Club to say
had this man killed me, because I'd not gone home!
Because we got on so well and started to...
I mean, it was hysterical, we just laughed and laughed and laughed.
It was during the second bottle of wine that Andrew Lloyd Webber
mentioned TS Eliot's anthology of poems, the Book Of Practical Cats.
So, at the end of it he said,
"Well, would you come home to my house and I'd love to play you a few
"of the songs that I've set from TS Eliot."
Andrew, of course, always loved cats,
and TS Eliot's playful poems were favourite bedtime reading
when he was a child.
He would often take Perseus, the family cat,
on daily walks from their flat in Harrington Court
to Thurloe Square Gardens nearby.
And this would be... We're exactly tracing the route Perseus would go.
Exactly tracing it.
A few distractions, you know, other people's gardens and things,
but this is where he would most definitely have walked.
Thurloe Square is the only garden we ever really got to play in.
I remember the square as being a lot rougher than it is now,
cos I'm pretty sure we used to ride our bicycles around here,
and we were allowed to do that.
But to use the poems as a basis for a stage musical,
he required permission from TS Eliot's widow, Valerie.
He didn't have far to go, as Valerie lived in Kensington too,
right in the heart of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer territory.
My big away win with Valerie Eliot
was when I sort of took my life in my hands, really,
and I just said to her, "Look,
"have you seen Hot Gossip on the Kenny Everett Show?
"Cos I think the cats ought to be much more like that,
"I don't think they should be pussycats."
And she just said, "Tom would have liked that."
Kids, 20-year-olds and things,
were all hugely taken by what Arlene Phillips was doing with Hot Gossip,
which was considered to be rude and naughty by Mary Whitehouse,
and once Mary Whitehouse intervened and made a huge kerfuffle about it,
everybody watched. And what Arlene really was doing was,
it was sexy, yes, but it was modern dance that, really,
the majority of us in Britain hadn't seen in this country.
Valerie Eliot gave her permission, and at their next meeting,
she brought along some unpublished work -
a poem that TS Eliot thought was too sad for children.
Once beautiful and adored,
Grizabella is the sad and lonely cat
who remembers the glamorous days of her youth.
Grizabella was a story that made you care.
And I remember going absolutely cold,
and Cameron was there and I said,
"Cameron, Cameron, we've got something bigger."
And Cameron saw this and he said, "We have, haven't we?"
And, oh, God...
I immediately was getting...
HE PLAYS AND HUMS MELODY
# She haunted many a low resort
# From the grimy road of Tottenham Court... #
It all flowed immediately.
# She flitted about the no-man's land
# From The Rising Sun to The Friend At Hand. #
And with that, there was such a different tone quality
to the whole piece.
It was that moment that the musical Cats was born.
But some good tunes and a bunch of verses by a dead poet
failed to persuade any investors or convince Tim Rice
that his services were required.
Why did Cats not seem to you to be the right thing for you?
Well, I wasn't needed. I mean, the lyrics were there already.
So, simple as that.
So, what could I have done?
Chess. Well, I did that, yes.
# Wasn't it good? Oh, so good
# Wasn't he fine? Oh, so fine... #
While Tim teamed up with ABBA to write Chess,
Tim's literary replacement, TS Eliot,
started to attract some blue-chip names,
including the Royal Shakespeare Company's Trevor Nunn,
Judi Dench, and the choreographer Gillian Lynne.
# I lost my heart to a starship trooper... #
With no money and not even a theatre,
the search began for that impossibly rare breed in 1980s Britain -
dancers who could sing and act.
First stop, Arlene Phillips, the founder of Hot Gossip.
Arlene suddenly says to me, "There's a girl in my dance troupe,
"her name's Sarah Brightman, she has the voice to take on anyone."
I remember she mentioned Barbra Streisand.
She said, "But that girl is going to change the course of your life."
And so I thought, "Huh?"
And you'd just got Starship Trooper out,
which I thought was a great pop record, but I never thought...
So I thought nothing more of it.
Yes. And then, of course, Cats came along.
And I remember the first time we met, I played appallingly,
and you came round to my flat, cos I couldn't really believe it was you.
You were so lovely. I remember sitting on your sofa,
looking at you, you were so lovely and you were really quite nervous.
I was extremely nervous. And I was nervous too.
I don't normally have people coming round to my flat with blue hair.
Good morning, everybody. Can you all come onstage, please?
We'll do a little bit of cat warm-up! Cat dip.
Sarah clearly impressed,
and secured the role of a cat called Jemima.
Once the cast was assembled,
the next challenge was for Gillian Lynne to make them feline.
I gave them a long and difficult class every day
so that we could find a way to be cats, cos it's a tough show.
And unless you have people going flat-out and really, you know,
practically breaking their leg and really being very daring and brave,
and at the same time you are being a cat,
which is not the same as being a human, it's tough.
I remember when you came on, you played all these tunes for Cats,
and I was thinking, "How is this going to work?
"There's a director from the Royal Shakespeare Company,
"there's Andrew playing these..."
I could not envisage at all...
And we still really didn't have a theatre.
And we looked at all... You know, we looked at Her Majesty's,
at Drury Lane and everything. Then one day, at the tender age of 12,
Andrew was doing his second This Is Your Life...
Tonight, Andrew Lloyd Webber, this is your life.
Thank you very much.
This Is Your Life was recorded in the West End's New London Theatre.
Back in the '80s, it was used as a television studio.
But it wasn't the parade of friends and relatives that captivated Andrew
that evening. It was the theatre.
He'd found his cats a home.
Problem was, there was no money to hire it.
We couldn't get the money for it.
There was an incredible meeting, quite late on in the process.
And Andrew said, "Well, we haven't got the money,
"so we've all got to go home tonight and anyone who knows anyone with any
"money, try and get at them."
Desperation set in,
so Lloyd Webber raised a second mortgage on his house
to secure the theatre.
Two weeks before the first preview, they moved into the New London,
at which point Judi Dench, who was playing Grizabella,
snapped her Achilles tendon.
They had to find a replacement, and fast.
PIANO PLAYS
Damn! OK, thank you.
Luckily, Elaine Paige happened to be free,
and agreed to take on Judi Dench's role.
But all the mishaps and delays that had plagued the production
had taken their toll.
We'd just seen a run-through the night before.
We both said, "There'll be just ridicule."
Cameron and I said, "People are just going to... It's just hopeless."
So we sat Trevor down and we said, "We're closing the show."
And Trevor said, "No, no, no,
"we'll just carry on rehearsals tomorrow morning and..."
And Trevor's quite powerful, and there's Cameron, you know,
now the powerful producer, and me, the so-called powerful composer...
We just said, "OK."
And that was that!
The first preview night finally arrived,
and, nervously, Andrew and Cameron stood in the wings of the New London
and looked out at the expectant crowd of theatre critics
who were sharpening their knives.
And it was an extraordinary thing, really,
cos we were all waiting here for the cats to go on
and none of us had a clue, none of us had a clue
what the reaction was going to be.
We bade them good luck and off they went,
and we went straight down to the bar and ordered large drinks,
because we thought that was it, it was going to be a disaster.
We did the overture and, of course, we revolved the audience
and, of course, I suppose now, with hindsight,
nobody expected that that would happen - I mean,
it had never, ever been done before,
with a whole load of people actually physically moving
through a building.
And they didn't realise that they were moving either,
that was the thing. So suddenly, when the first cat came out,
we were in a totally different environment
to that that we started with.
# Jellicles would and Jellicles can
# Jellicles can and Jellicles do
# Jellicle cats and Jellicles would
# And Jellicles do... #
And the overture, I remember,
was actually greeted with a big round of applause, and people were,
I think, genuinely, utterly blown away.
And we heard the first cheer.
And then we listened a bit longer and we heard this real...
You could feel the warmth coming, you know?
So we crept back up and the audience was going mad.
So we rushed straight back to the bar and had another one...
To celebrate.
# Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats
# Jellicle songs for Jellicle cats. #
And at the end, it was just like everybody rose up,
the whole theatre, and just applauded and screamed,
and it was like, "God, nobody expected that."
Already you could tell the show was going to be a hit.
What we didn't know, until a few weeks later,
was it was going to become a phenomena.
# Touch me
# It's so easy to leave me
# All alone with the memory
# Of my days in the sun... #
The phenomena was not just box office.
Within days of the opening, there were long queues for Cats T-shirts,
signalling a merchandising sensation
that musical theatre had never seen before.
# A new day
# Has begun. #
On October the 7th, 1982, Cats opened on Broadway.
It was a huge hit.
But success was tinged with sadness.
Back home, Mum rang to say Dad's operation had gone well.
I bought dad a Walkman plus a few cassettes,
including Rachmaninov's First Piano Concerto.
Dad donned the headphones
and was thoroughly enjoying the first movement,
when he suddenly said, "Andrew, what key is this in?"
I said, "G flat minor."
Dad shook his head.
"Have you still not learned the difference
"between G flat and F sharp?"
These were the last words I remember him saying to me.
William died the next day.
He was only 67.
But his legacy was to be the guiding spirit of Andrew's next project.
# Pie Jesu
# Pie Jesu... #
In the winter of 1982, Andrew's life began to unravel.
He was grieving for his father...
..and then fell in love with one of his Cats.
Then I began writing the Requiem Mass
and, of course, you were beginning to really, really...
I would lock you in your room, do you remember that?
I do. "Just keep at it," I said, "it's all there, it really is."
It's the one piece, you know, that I'd love to go over again,
because I don't think I got it completely right.
And you were very, very passionate about the piece.
Um, and I think that's what shines through,
through moments of it, and especially the Pie Jesu.
You know, the thing that I always think when I look back at it is
how extraordinary that Pie Jesu, which I never thought of, you know,
as anything that would ever be a stand-alone... Piece, yes.
And, of course, that's really the piece
everybody remembers from it now.
# Qui tollis peccata mundi
# Dona eis requiem... #
Pie Jesu reached number one in the UK charts, and its income alone
could have kept the composer living relatively comfortably
for the rest of his life.
The melody...
I mean, I was on my own turf with that, but I didn't...
Anyway, it would have been lovely sung by the Everly Brothers.
I mean, could you imagine...
..their harmonies on that?
I mean, that absolutely fits...
Can you imagine Don and Phil doing that?
That really would have been something.
In November 1983, Andrew divorced Sarah Hugill,
his wife of nearly 12 years,
and married Sarah Brightman on the afternoon of March the 27th, 1984...
..the very same day that Starlight Express opened in London.
# Starlight Express
# You must confess
# Are you real? Yes or no? #
Performed entirely on roller skates,
it's the story about a child's dream in which his toy train set
comes to life.
# There are dark days ahead... #
With the opening of Starlight,
Lloyd Webber now held the record of three shows on Broadway
and four in London.
But his marriage to Sarah Brightman would be the catalyst
for his next show - a project that would eclipse
everything he'd written before.
I was sitting in the bath one day,
one morning, and Andrew says,
"Cameron, what do you think about us doing Phantom of the Opera?"
Andrew came across a copy of the French novel while
working with Sarah on Requiem. He thought his new wife
would be perfect in the lead role of Christine.
I remember reading it and it ending up with Christine's ring
being on the Phantom's finger and I thought, "Oh, my God,
"it's a high romance." It's a romance. It is a high romance.
And it was a huge risk for a composer to say,
"I've written a show,
"but my wife's going to star in it."
And I think Sarah was the remarkable catalyst,
the fact that she and Andrew had this extraordinary relationship,
all touched on the ingredients that were necessary to explode this
and give him a reason for writing it.
The story of Phantom is about
a beautiful soprano called Christine, who becomes the obsession
of a mysterious, disfigured composer who haunts the labyrinth
of passageways beneath the Paris Opera.
And so, I mean, there I was,
faced with the possibility of writing the kind of melodies
I've always wanted to do. So, I mean, out comes All I Ask Of You...
I mean...
I mean, it's wonderful. I'm doing all the sort of...
..all those kind of harmonies.
And I just let myself go.
# All I ask for is one love
# One lifetime... #
And then, you see, I had this idea that wouldn't it be great
if we started in an old, old opera house
which was deserted for some reason,
and they were auctioning off the contents
and one of the items was a chandelier...?
MUSIC: Overture from Phantom Of The Opera
So, what if it's in pieces on the stage and it reassembles
and rises up over the audience?
And I just thought, "Oh, yeah!"
And that's, of course, when I got...
PLAYS MAIN MOTIF
I thought, "We're off to the races now."
PLAYS MAIN THEME
And so on.
And it still is a moment, I have to say, every time I see it,
it still is the moment I think that I'm never going to top
that as a theatrical idea.
Lloyd Webber started working on Phantom
with the Starlight writer Richard Stilgoe.
But after months of rewrites,
the pair agreed that Andrew should find another lyricist.
His name was Charles Hart and he was only 25.
It was a cauldron, really, of tension,
because there was so much at stake.
But at the same time, it became apparent to me
as I worked on it that I had,
of all the people involved in it, the least to lose.
Because the worst thing that could happen to me
would be I would go back to signing on,
which is what I was doing at the time.
While Lloyd Webber took a big risk with the lyricist,
he entrusted the staging of Phantom to a safe pair of hands -
the Evita director, Hal Prince.
The problem was, Hal had no Phantom to direct.
Andrew called from London and said, "I've got an idea,
"and I think it's a terrific one."
And he said, "Michael Crawford."
And I said, "Michael Crawford? Can he do this sort of thing?"
He said, "Get on a plane and fly over
"and we'll have him sing for us."
So I did, immediately.
And so he sang a little for us and you thought, my God, he's terrific.
That's it.
Frank!
The decision to cast Michael Crawford was a bold move.
In the '80s, he was best known to UK audiences
as the hapless Frank Spencer in Some Mothers Do Have 'Em.
The question was how to make him say yes.
It didn't take a lot of persuading,
because when I played him the overture, which I'd recorded,
and told him about the chandelier idea, he was in.
# Night-time sharpens
# Heightens each sensation
# Darkness wakes
# And stirs imagination... #
The whole point of The Phantom of the Opera
is that Christine is obsessed by the Phantom.
It's a relationship that is there, made through music.
And also, she finds him incredibly, incredibly charismatic.
There's nothing very likeable about him, really. He's a...
He's an... You know, an egocentric who kills people,
mesmerises, virtually date-rapes women,
and in the end his only saving grace really is his sense of decor.
You know? His pad is amazing.
Amazing as the Phantom's pad was,
the sinister opulence of the Paris Opera House,
populated by swinging chandeliers,
floating gondoliers and a grand staircase,
presented a whole host of technical challenges.
As a set, it's quite simple.
It's a black box with bits and pieces in it.
But those bits and pieces moved... Had to move...
..quite complicatedly.
Yes, at the time, because of course, nowadays,
with technical things that we have, it's easier.
But then... Because the dress rehearsals
were quite hairy, weren't they?
Well, because of the sets, and it was the chandelier...
Yes. ..which was the main fear.
And the costumes, the costumes were wonderful,
but, of course, they were complex.
They were very real and they had to...
Everything had to move, it was all moving parts, all the time.
Everything. That's the thing about the whole production...
And it was very voluptuous, so it had to move seamlessly.
And I think that was where... That was the problem,
was getting it to do all of that.
September the 27th, 1986,
was the night when the infamous Phantom dress rehearsal
entered into West End mythology.
The chandelier got stuck.
Many took this as an ill omen.
But on the opening night,
the set moved like clockwork and Phantom became a musical legend
and a once in a generation smash hit.
# Let your soul take you
# Where you long to be
# Only then can you belong to me... #
It was a nuclear explosion...
..of heightened emotion.
But if it hadn't had that,
if he hadn't found a way of channelling all things,
both in his private life and his creative life, into that,
I don't think the show, however beautiful, however well staged,
would have ever had the life it did.
Three, two, one...
Fast forward three decades to January 2018.
Phantom has reigned on Broadway for 30 years,
and Andrew and Cameron are in town to throw a party.
As birthday celebrations go,
they don't come much bigger
than lighting up the Empire State Building.
Many award-winning and critically acclaimed shows followed -
Aspects of love, The Woman in White,
Sunset Boulevard,
and Love Never Dies -
but none would match the success of Phantom.
Andrew's relationship with Sarah Brightman
didn't last the course.
It ended after publicity over her affair
with the Phantom keyboard player.
A few years later,
he spotted the woman who would become his lifelong partner on TV.
She was a professional rider.
She was a three-day eventer.
And I remember once seeing a race before the Grand National,
and I remembered this girl in the pouring rain underneath
the old Becher's Brook fence,
which was about three times her size,
being very funny and saying, "Where's my hair and make-up?"
Andrew and Madeleine have been together now for nearly 30 years,
and since their marriage,
Madeleine has played an increasingly active role
in the running of The Really Useful Company.
All in all, it would seem that he's led a charmed existence.
But the last few years have proved challenging.
I think I got very depressed when, recently,
when I really was pretty ill.
I mean, I had...
I don't want to bore anybody with it,
but after I got cancer, I then...
That was fine, and that was cured.
But I then had issues with my back.
# Stephen Ward, your friendly osteopath
# I can fix your lower back for you... #
The timing couldn't have been worse.
Andrew was working on the musical Stephen Ward,
a miscarriage of justice story
about the man who became a public scapegoat
during the Profumo affair in 1963.
# 1963! #
Stephen Ward. Hello.
Do you mind coming with us, sir?
I don't see why I should have to take the rap for your bit of fun.
# Sometimes that's what pain can do... #
Stephen Ward was an osteopath by profession.
That was an irony not lost on Lloyd Webber,
suffering severe back pain at the time.
When I was doing Stephen Ward, I was...
I mean, I was doing the musical on morphine.
And I advise you not to do a musical on morphine, actually.
It's not the most brilliant idea.
It doesn't actually help the mind hugely.
It didn't help the box office either.
The reviews were mixed and the audience didn't come.
When Stephen Ward opened in December 2013, it ran for just four months.
I think to myself, "Why did I get so low?" But it was just the pain.
And, you know, it was not being able to move half the time.
And I just thought, "It's all over."
And I thought, "If I can't do my musicals
"and I can't do any more, why bother?"
Despite these dark periods, Andrew did manage to recover.
He was full of energy once again
and rediscovered his passion for musical theatre.
# Stick it to the man! #
His wife, Madeleine, gave him the idea for a new musical.
The School of Rock was Andrew Lloyd Webber's comeback.
It follows Dewey Finn, an out-of-work rock guitarist
who pretends to be a teacher at a private school.
That's great. Well done. Bravo, guys.
Try something for me. Why don't you come in, around, for the beginning?
Just come in. So it's all very, very cosy, and it's all very smile,
lots of smiles to each other, but it's all this,
and then when you get to the big moment with the drum solo,
go back to your marks and then rock out.
When we started out with School of Rock on Broadway,
the audience didn't think that the children were playing live.
But I tell you, every single note that those children play is live.
And that's the joy of it, because, in the end,
the very simple message of School of Rock is that music empowers.
A few miles north of London's West End
can be found another school of rock.
This is Highbury Grove,
which hosts an extraordinary, pioneering project
called the Music in Secondary Schools Trust.
Partly funded by Lloyd Webber,
the school uses music to teach life skills,
improve exam results and combat gang culture.
# Produced on this road
# A famous music man and the one you should know
# I think of all the cattle that pass by the place... #
Great, now... Well done, brilliant.
Now, it's fun that you're doing it all on real instruments as well.
But I always think that the one thing to remember
with real instruments is, you can just play them, you know?
You don't have to feel at all inhibited.
In the end, the one thing about music is
that you don't have to be a professional musician.
I mean, I don't know if any of you ever would want to be.
But music is the one thing that keeps us all together, I believe.
And I'm just thrilled to hear you having such a good time with it all.
Andrew Lloyd Webber has never forgotten
the strong foundation music gave him as a child,
and is now determined that as many children as possible
get similar opportunities, in a world where music education
is seriously under threat.
What really impressed me, Truda, about what you were doing here
at Highbury was not that you were turning these kids into musicians,
but that you were using music to empower them.
Absolutely. So it's a vehicle for transformation,
that what it's teaching young people is discipline -
they have to practise, they have to bring their instrument,
they have to look after it.
Every child in this school has had three years
of classical music education. That is amazing.
Everybody does it, and when everybody does it,
kids don't opt out.
It's normal. It has normalised for every child
what classical music is.
So you have no... I have no Government funding.
I've had nothing, and we've reached 5,000 young people.
Wow. All through philanthropists
and people who are absolutely passionate.
It is a tragedy, what's happening currently in our secondary schools.
Well, I completely agree.
I mean, I'm lucky, because it was around me in my family
and music was around me and the theatre was around me.
But you see what happens when you take kids sometimes
who've never been near a theatre for the first time... Yes.
And I despair that, you know...
I mean, we just make a passionate plea that someday,
sometime, people will understand just how vital it is.
And the work you've done here, Truda, is extraordinary.
Thank you. Election broadcast. Yes!
So, now he feels it's time to give something back.
And not just through music education, but to theatre too.
It's no small irony that Andrew now owns seven major West End theatres,
including the London Palladium and the Cambridge Theatre.
But his favourite is the Theatre Royal Drury Lane,
where he first fell in love with musicals.
And his passion for architecture and theatre has finally come together
in an ambitious restoration project
which he's working on with Simon Thurley.
What we're walking in today
is this incredible sort of Regency palace, really.
And it was a palace because, as you know,
it was designed for the Royal family to come here to the theatre.
Drury Lane has been a working theatre
since the reign of Charles II,
but it's also a shrine to some of the great writers
whose work has been staged here.
Well, let's go through into the great rotunda.
I mean, wow. That's wow factor.
I quite like it. It's a sort of Cenotaph to all these famous actors.
Yes. You've got these statues of Garrick,
and it's a bit odd having the statue of Shakespeare,
because obviously, he never was involved here.
But you have these incredible figures,
all of whom trod the boards at the Lane.
Yeah. So where do we go from here? We go the King's Route, I assume?
Let's go the... Yeah. Well, you can go the King's Route.
Thank you. I will.
Front of house, the plan is to turn this beautiful Regency room,
the grand saloon, into a social space with a bar and restaurant.
But most of the money and effort
will be spent redesigning the auditorium.
I don't suppose you remember
where you are sitting when you watched... came to see My Fair Lady?
I think it was the upper circle.
I'm pretty sure it was the upper circle.
And I have to say,
My Fair Lady looked pretty good, because it was a great big show.
So, the whole purpose of what I want to achieve here
is to make this an 1,800, 1,900-seater auditorium,
which is hugely more intimate than it is today,
because if you look at this, this is a vast, great cavern here,
and there is this gap between the audience and the stage
which needs to be removed.
And the whole circle on both levels here will come forward,
so the feeling of the auditorium
will be infinitely more intimate than it is today.
We have got to recognise it's a working theatre,
and it's got to be a theatre that I leave fit for purpose
for the next couple of hundred years.
That's long-term planning for you.
But it's not so surprising.
With brother Julian's help,
he started building his first theatre in Harrington Court
over 60 years ago.
Nothing much has changed since then.
Andrew's love of melody and passion for musicals
has barely wavered since childhood.
It's a kind of weird moment for me, actually,
because I've got all of this material sitting there...
..like kind of waifs and strays looking for a home.
Yes, I think we've always... The Lloyd Webber family,
especially from my mother's side, has always loved a project.
If we don't have a project, we're restless and we're not happy.
And Andrew...
..is very much like that. He needs a subject,
and he will passionately find and seek that subject.
So, Andrew has another show in him.
I have another show. And there's a show after that too.
I just think we need to keep working.
Have you got an idea that you're not telling me about? Yes.
Absolutely. I can't. It's an idea that I need to meet with,
because the character is very much alive,
and I would need to talk to that person.
MUSIC: Memory from Cats by Andrew Lloyd Webber