Latest news with #Don'tCryforMeArgentina
New York Post
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Andrew Lloyd Webber is amazed he got Nicole Scherzinger to Broadway: 'The happiest person in history'
Andrew Lloyd Webber never thought he'd get Nicole Scherzinger to Broadway. 'I always remember when she did 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina' on a TV show some years ago,' Lloyd Webber told me during an hour-long sit-down. After her performance on that 2013 ITV special, 'Cats' director Trevor Nunn excitedly rang him up and said, 'That's the best it's ever been.' Advertisement 'He was right,' Lloyd Webber said. 'And that was the moment where I thought we've got to get her into the theater.' 5 Andrew Lloyd Webber told director Jamie Lloyd, if he could get Nicole Scherzinger to play Norma Desmond, he'd be 'the happiest man in the world.' Emmy Park for NY Post A year later, the former Pussycat Doll was belting out 'Memory' at the London Palladium as Grizabella in 'Cats.' But her Broadway contract didn't work out. She was always being booked as a judge on TV singing contests. Advertisement Nine lives, er, years, went by, and then the outre director Jamie Lloyd (known for Ibsen — not singin' or dancin') approached the composer with a strange idea — Scherzinger should play Norma Desmond, the has-been Hollywood star, in 'Sunset Boulevard.' 'And I said, 'Well, good luck!',' Lloyd Webber, 77, remembered. ''If you get her to the altar, I'm going to be the happiest person in history.' And he did.' She's unforgettable in the show at the St. James — bold, beautiful, petrifying and revelatory. A week ago, the starkly reimagined production deservedly scored seven Tony Award nominations, including for Best Revival, the indomitable Scherzinger, her exciting leading man Tom Francis and director Lloyd. Advertisement 'It is darker and, I think, it's also deeper,' Lloyd Webber said of his totally different 1994 musical. 5 Lloyd Webber's revival of 'Sunset Boulevard,' starring Nicole Scherzinger (right) and Tom Francis (left) scored seven Tony nominations. Emmy Park for NY Post The composer of 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and 'The Phantom of the Opera' is collaborating with Lloyd again this summer on a production of 'Evita' in London at the Palladium starring Rachel Zegler. The director, who successfully uses live cameras and screens in 'Sunset,' wants to pull a similar trick with 'Don't Cry For Me Argentina.' But so far, he's faced backlash from local politicians. Advertisement 'Do you know what Jamie wants to do with 'Evita'? And the council won't let us,' Lloyd Webber tantalizingly dangled. 'With 'Evita' in London, when he does it this time — the Palladium has a balcony outside,' he went on, suggesting Zegler could sing on it. 'It might mean crowds will gather on the street.' Uh oh — the Brits can't have that. 5 Jamie Lloyd's starkly reimagined 'Sunset Boulevard' uses live cameras and screens. Marc Brrenner Here in carefree New York, his delightful 'Cats: The Jellicle Ball,' which I adored last summer downtown, has not yet secured a Broadway house for a planned transfer. However, Lloyd Webber is confident it will find a home soon. 'I think it will come in next season,' he said. 'Everybody seems to want it. The Nederlanders have got nothing for it, but, you know, the other two, [the Shuberts and ATG].' And then there's 'Masquerade,' the immersive (and shorter) version of 'Phantom of the Opera' coming to West 57th Street. Several small groups of about 60, a source said, will be taken into the bespoke venue per day — a la 'Sleep No More.' There have been construction delays, but don't be surprised if you see one of the longest-running Phantoms back in the mask. Advertisement 5 Another new vision of 'Cats' is still searching for a Broadway theater for a transfer. Evan Zimmerman However, Lloyd Webber's not content with simply carting out the old hits. He recently created a new company with producer Michael Harrison called Lloyd Webber Harrison Musicals to free himself up from the business side and make more music of the night. 'I came to the conclusion at my age now that I've got to only do composing,' he said. Advertisement So, Lloyd Webber is hard at work on a new musical (his 22nd) of the 2006 film 'The Illusionist,' which starred Edward Norton as a Vienna magician. He's completed a draft of what he calls 'an opera.' '[We've] done a reading, sing-through as it were, with just us and a couple of singers around a piano of the whole thing. And now it's at the point where one, I think, starts to deconstruct it,' Lloyd Webber said of the show which will also be directed by — who else? — Jamie Lloyd. 5 Lloyd Webber is hard at work on a new musical of the 2006 film 'The Illusionist.' Emmy Park for NY Post 'If there was a theater available, and if Jamie wasn't doing anything else, and I haven't got the other bits and pieces, I mean we could go into rehearsal this coming September or October. But we won't.' Advertisement Lloyd Webber said one hold up is a big illusion in the show 'that we've got to get right,' so it will require six weeks of rehearsal instead of the usual four. 'I think we could be up and going by next September,' he said of a 2026 West End run before hopefully Broadway. Two years ago, when Lloyd Webber's 'Bad Cinderella' closed, it ended an unrivaled streak: For 43 years, he always had a show running on Broadway. Plenty of people counted him out. But now, to quote the most famous song from 'Sunset,' 'everything's as if we never said goodbye.'
The Guardian
11-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Dedication's what you need': Memories of Record Breakers as BBC reboots show
For many British gen Xers, BBC Record Breakers was a staple of their childhoods in the 1970s and 80s. Following the news the show is to be rebooted after 24 years off air, people have shared their recollections of its featured world record attempts, beloved and controversial presenters and theme song, Dedication. Many of those who responded to the Guardian's callout warmly remembered Roy Castle, one of the original presenters, as an all-round showbiz trouper. Castle, an accomplished trumpeter who performed Dedication at the end of each episode, broke nine world records himself and worked on the show until just months before his death from lung cancer in 1994. 'Roy Castle brought joy to proceedings – I loved his warm and witty everyman persona,' said Andrew Brooke, 56, a retired teacher from Wells in Somerset. 'Dedication must rank as one of the finest theme tunes in history, particularly as he sang and played a trumpet solo live each week. The lyrics were tweaked to fit the featured records attempts. I would occasionally sing them to inspire my pupils: 'If you want to be the best, if you want to beat the rest, dedication's what you need.' Though there was usually no response at all from the children!' Brooke was one of many respondents who particularly enjoyed the attempts to break records live on the show. One that has stuck in his memory involved a barber trying to complete the most number of shaves in a minute: 'He used a cut-throat razor on these men with five o'clock shadows and cut someone's face in the process.' Sarah Shepley, 60, a retired scientist from Devon, recalled meeting Castle when she took part in two record attempts on the show in 1977. Then aged about 12, her church youth club in Ealing, west London, was invited to BBC White City to be part of a big tap dance ensemble in the courtyard. 'We then joined a huge group of kids peeling onions. They gave us plastic knives for it which were useless. It was a hoot. Roy Castle sang 'Don't cry for me onion peeler'. Don't Cry for Me Argentina was a No 1 hit that year. He was just a nice bloke, hilarious, a big kid.' A few people said the show inspired them to attempt to break records. Among them was Philip Reader, 56, from London, who back in his infant school in Brentwood in Essex roped in his best friend to see how far they could hop on one leg. He wrote to the programme and was delighted to receive a signed response from Castle, along with a 'showbizzy' autographed photo. But he was disappointed to hear from the presenter that there was no recognised category for his record attempt. Reader, who works for Waitrose, said the show encouraged him to pursue his passion for music to this day. 'It taught me about following your own ideas and not being afraid to stand out from the crowd,' he added. ''Dedication's what you need' is the advice and encouragement that I have carried throughout my life.' Another callout respondent had his hopes of breaking a record dashed by his parents' revelations about a purportedly long-lived pet. Peter Allan, 60, a self-employed management consultant from East Renfrewshire, Scotland, said: 'It was thanks to Record Breakers that I discovered my hamster had died.' Allan explained: 'I had read that the average life expectancy of a hamster was 18 to 24 months. My 10-year-old self was so excited because my hamster 'Jeemy' was seven years old! I was busy composing a letter to Roy hoping Jeemy would become a record breaker when my dad informed me that Jeemy was actually Jeemy IV. Every time Jeemy died he was surreptitiously replaced. I was upset – not at the sad demise of my pets but at the wasted time and effort of letter writing!' Many readers said their childhood memories of the show have subsequently been tainted by learning about the far-right politics of the two other original presenters, twins Norris McWhirter and Ross McWhirter. The Guinness World Records founders astounded many viewers with their recall of record-breaking facts and figures. But the brothers also co-founded the rightwing National Association for Freedom (Naff), later the Freedom Association, which campaigned against sporting sanctions imposed on apartheid-era South Africa. Ross McWhirter, who was assassinated by an IRA gunman in 1975, also advocated restrictions on the freedom of the Irish community in Britain, including compulsory registration with the police. 'As my family is from Belfast, I guess that would have included us,' said Andrew Brooke. 'As a child, Norris McWhirter just seemed to be a kindly old and eccentric uncle, wheeled out to amaze us with his remarkable memory,' Brooke added. 'I also remember feeling very sorry for him after Ross was murdered. 'As I grew older and became more politically aware, I developed a severe aversion to Norris, after finding out that he ran a nasty rightwing thinktank. I couldn't understand how the BBC would employ someone with such extreme views. Then again, vetting children's TV presenters wasn't exactly the BBC's forte back then.' Other readers' recollections of later series, after Norris McWhirter had left the show in 1985, were not tarnished by the subsequent presenters' political leanings. Sue Wilde-Greer, 56, from Spain, recalled how her father, Mike, then a sales director for a window-cleaning kit company, was invited on the show in 1995 to judge an attempt to break the fastest window-cleaning record. 'He loved being on the show,' she said. 'He wore his best suit and we all sat down as a family to watch it.' The record-breaker Terry 'Turbo' Burrows said his time on the show, then hosted by the former Bucks Fizz singer Cheryl Baker and the former Olympic and Commonwealth medal-winning athlete Kriss Akabusi was 'truly amazing'. He went on to break his window-cleaning record a further nine times, bringing the record time down to 9.14 seconds.
