Chit Chat - The Lloyd Webber show home

Published Thursday 21 July 2005 at 17:30

With Andrew Lloyd Webber selling off four parts of his Really Useful Theatres portfolio to Nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer, it is perhaps a good time to cast our minds back to how it all began.

No, I’m not talking about his decision to purchase the Palace. Long, long before that he was already harbouring ambitions of running his own venue, while living with his granny in Kensington.

As his brother Julian told Tabard: “Andrew and I, both our parents [who were music teachers] and Granny shared the flat, along with a pair of lodgers. They were the pianist John Lill and the then unknown lyricist Tim Rice. It was bizarre. In fact, so many people always seemed to be coming and going that my mother ended up getting the flat next door as well.

“So my grandmother moved into that with John and Tim. There were girls in and out all the time on Tim’s side. They all had little handbags and very short skirts, and I found it all fascinating.”

Julian adds that he grew up listening to his older brother’s efforts at composition, and he helped him mount mini-musicals “using a miniature theatre, with toy soldiers playing all the characters. I’d work the curtains and the cast and Andrew would play the piano. We’d virtually drag people in off the streets to see the shows.”

Well I suppose you’ve got to start somewhere.