Big Red Book
Celebrating television's This Is Your Life
Andrew LLOYD WEBBER (1948-)
THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Andrew Lloyd Webber, composer, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews - with the help of company members of the musical Evita - at Thames Television's Euston Road Studios, having been led to believe he is there to be interviewed about his new musical.
Andrew, who was born in London, read history for a term at Magdalen College, Oxford, before abandoning the course to pursue his interest in musical theatre by studying at the Royal College of Music. In 1965 he met lyricist Tim Rice, and together they collaborated on a piece originally commissioned for a school choir, which eventually became Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. After being developed into a two hour production the musical was staged in the West End and ran for 9 months in 1973.
They followed that success with the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, which opened on Broadway after the release of a hugely successful concept album, before opening in London in August 1972 where it played for 3357 performances, closing in 1980 as the longest running musical in British theatre history. Their third production, Evita, opened in London to great acclaim in June 1978.
"This is terrible!"
programme details...
- Edition No: 554
- Subject No: 550
- Broadcast date: Wed 26 Nov 1980
- Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
- Recorded: Tue 4 Nov 1980
- Venue: New London Theatre
- Series: 21
- Edition: 7
- Code name: Joseph
on the guest list...
- company members of Evita
- John Turner
- Mark Ryan
- David Burt
- Stephanie Lawrence
- Marti Webb
- Don Black
- Sarah - wife
- Jean - mother
- William - father
- Julian - brother
- Celia - sister-in-law
- Robin Barrow
- Tim Rice
- David Land
- Gary Bond
- Paul Nicholas
- Robert Powell
- Babs Powell
- Elaine Paige
- David Essex
- Don Everly
- Imogen - daughter
- Nicholas - son Recorded tribute:
- Edmundo Ros - via telephone Filmed tribute:
- Hal Prince
related appearances...
- Elaine Paige - Jan 1979
- Gillian Lynne - Feb 1989
- Sarah Brightman - Nov 1989
- Paul Nicholas - Oct 1991
- Don Black - Nov 1996
- Barbara Dickson - Oct 1998
- Richard Stilgoe - Jun 2001
- Jenny Seagrove - Mar 2002
production team...
- Researcher: Vivien Lind
- Writers: Tom Brennand, Roy Bottomley
- Directors: Stuart Hall, Terry Yarwood
- Producer: Jack Crawshaw
- names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life
second tribute
a musical theatre chorus line
surprised again!
keeping it in the family
Jack Crawshaw reviews his time on This Is Your Life
TV Times looks at some 'unplanned' incidents
Screenshots of Andrew Lloyd Webber This Is Your Life
NOVEMBER WAS BLANKED OUT for me and Gillie to audition up and down the country for that impossibly rare breed in 1980s Britain, dancers who could sing and act. That's how I first properly met Sarah Brightman. It was a surprise that she wanted to audition as she was a pop name with a big hit with "Starship Trooper" under her belt. A private meeting was arranged at my London flat. She arrived wearing a blue wig which may be the reason why I played "Don't Rain on My Parade" so appallingly for her. I thought she had a nice voice and that was about it.
Two days later it was up to Glasgow and Newcastle, in the middle of which I had a glorious half day off which I planned to spend squinting at architecture. I couldn't understand why Biddy, my sanguine PA, kept crazily scheduling an audition in London between the two northern casting dates. No matter how many times I said she was a congenial idiot either Cameron or Sarah insisted the London auditions were etched in granite.
I discovered what was behind this nonsense in the middle of the night. My poor wife was worried so sick about my suicidally stupid musical that she had taken to pouring out her angst in her sleep. One night I woke to hear her burbling on about a big secret that "Andrew mustn't know about." Naturally I took advantage of her semiconscious state and asked in my best soothing psychiatrist tones what it was. After a lot of incoherent drivel about relatives, she mumbled the words "This Is Your Life."
So that was the reason for my ludicrous schedule. It was that old chestnut of a TV show where ancient relatives and so-called friends were wheeled out to the surprise and shock of all too often B-list celebrities. Next morning I gave a virtuoso acting performance about knowing nothing which caused Sarah to fear the polar opposite.
I remember little about the TV programme nor the parade of relatives and friends who were dredged up. That was because my mind was entirely somewhere else. I had found our cats' home. The TV programme was recorded in the New London Theatre. During the endless procession of cousins I never knew I had, my eyes wandered around a perfect pussydrome. Built on the site of the old Winter Garden, the New London opened in 1973 as the "theatre of the future." It was designed by Sean Kenny, the man responsible for some of the most revolutionary sets ever, as both a proscenium theatre and theatre-in-the-round. Whilst kissing some long-lost great-aunt I remembered that this was achieved by a giant turntable in the floor.
The moment the show was over I told a disbelieving Sarah that I'd found a cats' home. Could she keep my various relatives and wellwishers at bay in the green room whilst I phoned Trevor Nunn? Luckily I got straight through to the RSC's HQ at the Aldwych Theatre and begged him to sprint the few hundred yards to the New London. Sarah did a brilliant covering job for me at the party by saying I was at the other end of the room when I wasn't, so for ten minutes Trevor and I had free rein of the empty theatre.
What happened next rendered us speechless. I don't think two theatre animals could ever have mouthed "eureka" so instantly. The building manager had wandered in and I asked him if the turntable that changed the audience configuration still worked. He said sure, would we like to see it? Next Trevor and I were looking at 300 seats moving to make a perfect theatre-in-the-round. We clutched each other. Not only had we found our cats' home, we could physically move our audience too! Trevor said it was the most exhilarating moment he had ever had in a theatre.
We had surprised Andrew with the cast of Evita, which included Elaine Paige, David Essex, John Turner, Stephanie Lawrence and Paul Nicholas.
As a child, Andrew had loved the music of Edmundo Ros, who rang from his home in Spain, delighted that Andrew's taste for Latin American music had come through in his latest hit musical.
Andrew also has a great love of pop/rock music. One of his favourite numbers is the Everly Brothers singing 'Bye, Bye, Love', and he couldn't be more delighted when we flew Don Everly in from Nashville to surprise him.
Two years before his death in October 1982, Andrew's greatly loved and understanding father explained on the television show This Is Your Life why he and his wife had given their unruly son 'a special nickname'. 'When he [Andrew] was little, he was for ever jumping and bumping around the place, making a dreadful din and disturbing all the neighbours at three o'clock in the morning,' Jean said. But Dr Lloyd Webber wouldn't say what the nickname was, which in fact caused last-minute concern to the show's presenter Eamonn Andrews and the Thames Television team. On the air at least, dignity was preserved. However, Billy and Jean had talked frankly to the programme's diligent researcher, Vivien Lind. 'He was always a mass of energy and even when very small would create lots of noise,' Billy Lloyd Webber exclaimed. 'He just wouldn't go to sleep at night, but wanted to jump around screaming the whole time, which obviously disturbed the neighbours.' The nickname was 'Bumper'!
'We discovered Andrew loved Latin American music,' Billy said, 'and he'd sit for hours as good as gold listening with rapt attention to the music of Edmundo Ros.' Was it true? Let us say it might have been so, once or twice; though the desire of the programme producer to have the colourful Mr Ros as an additional personality in his show may perhaps have made more of this than it deserved.
Certainly Vivien's research notes confirm that it was a Ros record which put Andrew the Unruly to sleep. '"The Wedding Samba" would play all night long if necessary,' his mother told her. 'It was the only thing that would keep him quiet.' And later, 'It was essential to keep Andrew occupied,' his mother said. 'Otherwise he drove everyone mad.'
Yet one obstacle remained, and it was a daunting one. Where to stage Cats - which could not possibly be performed in a conventional theatre without altering the entire architectural structure of the place?
Wrapped in thought about this fundamental problem, Andrew was in no mood to take the call from Thames TV requesting his urgent presence at the New London Theatre for final work on some music of his which was to be screened. He went along on that evening of 4 November 1980 unaware that the rendezvous was a ruse, that he was to be put through the embarrassing if flattering ordeal of featuring in Eamonn Andrews' long-running This Is Your Life. Had he known, he probably would have ducked it. [Bigredbook.info editor: Andrew was actually surprised at Thames Television's Euston Road Studios]
Instead, he went through the motions, as invariably he goes through all public appearances - with every faculty tensed to avoid saying anything in haste or folly. Only his eyes showed the surprise he felt, but the show was bland and innocuous enough, revealing little of the man behind the celebrity persona. It is interesting to learn that his own thoughts were barely with it, or its many touching reunions.
He was appraising the hall.
Here he was, in theatre, the New London, which miraculously seemed to offer exactly the right specifics for Cats: a broad open stage which, by conventional proscenium standards, was virtually 'in the round' in that it allowed the audience to become part of the play. Immediately the show ended and he could release himself from the warm exchanges it encouraged, Andrew telephoned Cameron Mackintosh.
On November 4, 1980, Lloyd Webber, accompanied by his aide Bridget ("Biddy") Hayward, wandered into the New London Theatre in Drury Lane - by reputation the unluckiest theatre in London and then in use as a television studio and conference centre. Andrew thought he was headed there at the request of Thames Television for consultation on a musical matter. Instead, he was the surprised victim of Eamonn Andrews's This Is Your Life, the British version of the long-running American program. [Bigredbook.info editor: Andrew was actually surprised at Thames Television's Euston Road Studios]
The show is a remarkable symbolic document. Never very comfortable in public, Lloyd Webber endured the ordeal with his face set in a grim rictus, sinking back into his chair in an attempt to make himself as small and inconspicuous as possible. The shoulder-length hair and velvet suits of his mod days were a thing of the past; the father of two small children (Imogen had been born on March 31, 1977, and Nicholas Alastair on July 22, 1979) was now given over sartorially to the English Rumpled Look, tousle-headed and usually tieless. The only time that Andrew really seemed to enjoy himself on the show was when Don Everly, half of the Everly Brothers, popped out of the wings for a quick hello; most of the time, the only part of him that showed any emotion was his brown, sloping cat's eyes, which darted around the studio, taking it all in, forecasting, calculating, plotting.
One by one, the guests came out from behind a screen, each to tell a little Webberian anecdote. His wife, Sarah, recalled their first dinner date, when she, the teenager, wondered if he was going to make her pay her share; Jean and Bill told the world what a troublesome child "Bumper" had been, and Edmundo Ros got on the horn from his home in Spain, glad to have been of service in soothing the little savage's breast. Julian told the already shopworn anecdote of the Orient football bet, Tim Rice talked about moving in with Andrew's granny because the price was right, and a by-now mollified David Land reminisced about the pop museum idea of so long ago.
Gary Bond came on to tell the story of how Lloyd Webber and Sarah joined him for a holiday on the Greek island of Mykonos after Joseph had opened in the West End; Lloyd Webber had arrived wearing his trademark velvet suit while everyone else on the beach was naked. Bond called him "a very loyal friend." Paul Nicholas, who had played Jesus in the recently closed London Superstar - in sum, the show had run for 3,357 performances, a British record - noted that they had not worked together for eight years. "Nothing personal, I hope," he said. Elaine Paige arrived, as did David Essex, who had been the Che to Elaine's Evita, and Marti Webb and Stephanie Lawrence, both replacement Evitas, were also on hand. The actor Robert Powell chatted about a board game Andrew had once inflicted on his friends, called, appropriately, "Insanity." Near the end, Hal Prince came on from his office in New York, ruing his failure to get a hold of Superstar, revealing in his Evita triumph. "I finish with one question," Prince said. "What do we do next?"
That was the question on Eamonn Andrews's mind as well, but he was thinking about Lloyd Webber and Rice. As well he should; This Is Your Life's subtitle that evening might well have been "And Not Yours, Tim Rice." If the program's producers had set out deliberately to insult Tim, who sat through the show with a tight little smile of bemusement, they could not have done a better job. If there was any sense that Lloyd Webber owed any of his success to his partner - indeed, that Rice had conceived all three hit shows - it was very well hidden. (Andrews had first asked Rice to be the guest of honour, but Jane Rice had turned the request down flat.)
Rice and Lloyd Webber hardly looked at each other during the program. Their only spontaneous exchange came during Land's narrative - "He managed to get hold of Elvis's guitar and the busted trousers of ..." - which was interrupted by a quick flash from Lloyd Webber, who cracked, "...Tim Rice!" So the old sexual jealousy was still operative. When Andrews asked Lloyd Webber what his and Rice's next project would be, the composer replied, "It's a closely guarded secret." He still didn't feel free to abandon Rice entirely.
Nevertheless, it is instructive to consider the fate of each of the show's participants vis-a-vis Lloyd Webber: with very few exceptions, from that moment on few of them would have any further effect on Andrew's fortunes. During the programme, Bill Lloyd Webber sat slumped in his chair, his chin resting on his chest. Body language was very revealing in the Lloyd Webber family - there was Jean's prim control, Andrew's protective hunch, and Julian's modest self-effacement - and Bill's posture eloquently bespoke a man both tired and sick, and sick and tired. Some fathers would take vicarious revenge in witnessing a public celebration of their son's triumph in a field that fate had closed to them, but Bill seemed to take no pleasure in it at all. After his "Bumper" story, he sat almost motionless, contemplating, perhaps, not his son's victory but his own defeat. Nor were other family members immune from the changes that would shortly sweep Andrew's life. By 1984 Sarah Hugill would officially be the ex-Mrs Lloyd Webber and Sydmonton Court would have a new mistress.
As far as performers were concerned, Nicholas would appear in Cats and then would disappear; there would be no major roles forthcoming for Bond; and it would take an accident for Paige to get into Lloyd Webber's next show. Land was already gone, of course, and Prince would have to wait six years until he directed another Lloyd Webber musical. What did have a future, however, was the space, the New London Theatre itself, which, as luck would have it, had been built by Sefton Myers. As Andrew looked around, he decided that the theatre-in-the-round would be perfect for Cats.
'When he was little,' said Bill when Andrew was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1980, 'he was forever jumping and bumping around the place, making a dreadful din and disturbing all the neighbours at three o'clock in the morning.' The only successful soporific, apparently, was the Latin American dance music of Edmundo Ros and his band. Bill placed records of Edmundo and Co on his creaky, wind-up gramophone turntable while Jean rocked the little terror to sleep.
The television programme This Is Your Life was recorded in the New London, and when Lloyd Webber was the victim in 1980, he sat through the proceedings dreaming of what this theatre might do. After the recording, he left the reception and ran down to the Aldwych to grab Nunn and bring him back to have a look.
The Times 13 April 1981
Berger Paints will not be having their annual sales conference at the New London Theatre this year. It is one of a number of commercial engagements which has had to be rehoused to make way for Cats, Andrew Lloyd Webber's first stage musical since Evita. The New London hardly had a happy opening with Peter Ustinov's The Unknown Soldier and his Wife and since that day it has not done much looking forward. But Cats could change all that and the New London, substantially restricted to accommodate its feline tenants, is at least going back to being a legitimate theatre.
The idea of using the New London for Cats came to Lloyd Webber when he was standing on the centre of its stage: "I had been 'kidnapped' to appear on This Is Your Life and while the passing parade of long-lost cousins and aunts was going on I took a look around the theatre and realised that it was what we had been looking for. The moment the show was over I abandoned Eamonn Andrews – it must have looked terribly rude – and rushed to the telephone to ring Trevor Nunn, who had been working on Cats with me, to tell him we had our 'space'."
Series 21 subjects
Joe Loss | Julie Goodyear | Lawrie McMenemy | Peter Bowles | Mike Yarwood | John Schlesinger | Andrew Lloyd WebberJanet Brown | Rodney Bewes | Russell Harty | Joan Wells | Billy Connolly | Bill Owen | Jeffery Archer | Brian Jacks
Melvin Hayes | Fred Housego | Alex Higgins | Tim Brooke-Taylor | Bernard Cribbins | Gemma Craven | Jim Watt
John Thaw | Jonjo O'Neill | Judith Chalmers | Margaret Price