The Stage

Chit Chat - Any musical will do

Published Monday 16 April 2007 at 13:20 by Tabard

Something of a war of words appears to be brewing between the rival teams behind TV talent shows Any Dream Will Do and Grease Is the Word.

A couple of weeks ago at the Grease launch - despite David Ian’s best attempts to play down any talk of rivalry between the ITV series and its BBC counterpart - fellow judge David Gest was adamant that Grease had better songs than Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. This might initially seem harmless but, when one remembers that rival judge Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the show…

“I think Grease has great songs,” he told assembled hacks. “I don’t think Joseph has as good songs. Not by far. Everybody knows. Screw it, Grease has great songs.”

Now it’s the other team’s turn to have its say, with Lloyd Webber getting in a not so sly dig in a recent interview. “You can’t do it [the TV talent search format] with every musical,” he told The Guardian. “When they try to do it and everyone tries to imitate, it’s not going to work. I haven’t seen the Grease show but, if the US version is anything to go by, it isn’t good. I did one of the programmes over there and I’ve never had such a joyless, uphill experience in my life. Everything rendered without any understanding of what the original Maria programme was about.”

Miaow.