Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical The Beautiful Game opened in London in September 2000 and ran with positive reviews till September 1st, 2001. The show deals with issues of religious intolerance and violence in Ireland using the conflict within a soccer team comprised of Protestants and Catholics. It also follows political issues, the IRA, and terrorism. While the show never transferred to Broadway, in 2009 a revised edition has been running in Canada under a new title, The Boy’s in the Photograph.
The music by Andrew Lloyd Webber is fantastic. I hear traces of Superstar and Starlight, but never enough to make me roll over. The score, as is common in Webber scores, repeats music quite a bit, but again it doesn’t bother me too much. One thing I found interesting about this score is there are really no star moments. In a lot of his scores he provides spotlight moments, but this is really an ensemble show.
Lyrics by Ben Elton show that he is a quite a writer, but as this was his first musical I think he also has learned a lot. Since this musical he went on to write compilation or ‘juke box’ musicals We Will Rock You using the music of Queen and Tonight’s the Night using the music of Rod Stewart. Elton is however, writing the lyrics for Webber’s next musical Love Never Dies.
The Beautiful Game won the Best Musical Award from the Critics’ Circle Theater Awards in 2000.
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