MusicalTalk - The UK's Independent Musical Theatre Podcast

We return to part two of our special in-depth look at the fantastic free new musical drama podcast, The Ballad of Anne and Mary, created by Laurence Owen and Lindsay Sharman about the famous 18 th Century pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. This week we discuss the story, themes and structure used to tell the take effectively over several weeks, and we listen to and analyse the wonderful title song...

Join Thos over the next three weeks for a special in-depth look at the fantastic new musical, The Ballad of Anne and Mary.  In this first episode, he talks to the show's creators, Laurence Owen and Lindsay Sharman, about the development of this fantastic venture which is presented as a free five-part musical drama podcast, and tells the story of famous 18 th Century pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Re...

Join Thos as he revisits the much praised 2010 Regents Park Open Air Theatre production of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, which is viewable to watch in a streaming version online.  Cast your mind back to the heady days of a decade ago when the world was celebrating Sondheim's 80 th birthday, Dame Judi Dench was the Giant's Wife and you could cast real trees as part of this evergreen musical! A...

Welcome to this bumper edition of MusicalTalk crammed with great songs and fine chat as Thos brings us a brand new interview with talented writer, Alexander S. Bermange, creator of I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical, a wonderful show shortly be made available in a specially recorded version for online viewing via the Kings Head Theatre website.  In this lively and information conversation, you can...

With the five star revue, I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical – a must see for all fans of musical theatre – being made available for streaming, join Thos for the first of two interviews with Alexander S. Bermange, the talented writer and creator of the show.  In this week's episode, we hear about the show when it was at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2019 and how it came to be in the first place...

One of our favourite interviews ever on MusicalTalk has been with British entertainment legend Bobby Crush.  Join original MusicalTalk Presenter Andy Edwards as he re-unites us with Bobby for an entertaining interview!

Mike Shapiro chats with Giles Howe, co-creator of Soviet Zion, a new musical set in a remarkable socio-political experiment in WW2 Russia.

Join us for a chilled discussion as Nick talks to Ryan about Lizzie, horror musicals, Be More Chill and songs being cut from cast recordings!

This week Nick and John take a look at shows that take things from the past and reinvents them for the future by talking about the shows they last saw.  John talks about seeing the new production of West Side Story at the Broadway Theatre and Nick talks about seeing Back to the Future in Manchester.

Join Nick and Dom as they discuss musicals based on, or featuring elements of, Farce!  Thankfully Dom and Nick still recognise each other at the end and there are no door slams! 

Fresh from talking about the wonderful online production of Jack and the Beanstalk, Thos presents another chance to hear an in depth interview with its author and Dame Par Excellence, Peter Duncan, about his life in show business and his love for musical theatre and panto!

Join Thos and Tim as they discuss Peter Duncan's highly enjoyable online pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk – and talk about how to capture the raucous excitement of British Pantomime in a video production, as well as unexpected visits from Gustav Holst, Thomas Nashe and William Shakespeare who all contributed to the story.  Fe Fi Fo Fun-times!

Nick, during lockdown, decided to write a mad musical celebrating the UK Theme Park Community.  Join Nick with other members of the team as they discuss this mad show - that you can watch here on YouTube: https://youtu.be/PlPdZa65Z7E The musical stars many members of the UK Theme park community but also features cameos from John Wardley and the legendary Neil Patrick Harris. 

It's time for a celebration as MusicalTalk reaches its 700 th episode and to mark this milestone, we take you behind the scenes in a very special edition featuring those beautiful dreamers, Jonathan, David, Nick and Thos as well as a piano, a whole lot of songs and several biscuits! 

It's time to give your kitchen equipment dirty looks as we join Thos and Colm as they look at what makes the recent revival of modern classic, Caroline, or Change, so impressive.  Whether it's the off-beat surrealism, quiet revolution, avoidance of the obvious and a skillful use of stillness, this most unusual of musicals makes a profound impact as our presenters discover.

Adamant that Porgy and Bess is an opera?  Well, it ain't necessarily so as Thos and Colm chat about the recent English National Opera production of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess – the is-it-or-isn't-it-an-opera opera!  With a soaring score, we look at the fusion of arias and songs, and how this monumental classic holds up in the 21 st Century. 

We start the new year with another look at 42nd Street, one of the evergreen stories of musicals – with a peek at the original 1932 novel by Bradford Ropes, an in-depth look at the recent London production with Colm and a discussion on the unusual tensions in the show itself which points it in two directions at one: a literal two way street!  

It may be a reduced Christmas this year with the pandemic and lockdowns, but that's no reason not to have a good old quiz and songfest here on MusicalTalk.  So that can only mean its our traditional MusicalTalk Crimbo Musical Theatre Quiz – a merry mix of quirky questions and superb songs compiled for your diversionary pleasure by Thos who is on totally MAD form (hint: this might be a clue).

Dom and Nick are joined by John from New York to talk about more streaming options available - such as On the 20th Century, Upon a Mattress and 42nd Street - plus whatever else takes our fancy. 

In this week's bumper episode, we look again at Jekyll Versus Hyde, the frankly brilliant adaptation of the evergreen story by discussing the musical with its creators, Laurence Owen and Lindsay Sharman and hearing what Thos and Mike thought about its investigation into duality. There's also a chance to hear a ten point review of the recent West End version of 42 nd Street which has been made avai...

It's time to get the geek as we join Thos and Tom as they chat some more about another Edinburgh Fringe musical theatre hit of recent years – The Toxic Avenger, a hilarious and tuneful musical adaptation of the 1984s film – and a show just packed full of stagey gags!  Warning: may contain hot toxic love!

Thos and Tom chat about two past Edinburgh Fringe comedies – Timpson the Musical, which hilariously imagines the birth of the high street favourite in a bouncy, engaging production, and also Redacted Arachnid, which is that most unusual thing – a show that's not a musical that's all about another show that is! 

With 2013's epic new musical, From Here to Eternity, recently revived on Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Show Must Go On website, listen to Thos and Tim as they talk about the weaknesses and strengths of the original London production, and then, following the sad death of Bobby Ball, of British comedy double act Cannon and Ball, there's a chance to hear Ed's 2009 interview with them both as they talk ab...

Colm and Thos discuss Drive By Shooting (A Street Art Opera), a brand spanking new ten minute opera that unexpectedly uses the model of the three hundred year old intermezzo they discussed last week, and then keeping it in the eighteenth century, Josh chats with Thos about a recent adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion that uses a modern model of performance but with a score from the late 1700s....

Join Thos and Colm as they talk about The Secretary Turned CEO, a radical modern re-interpretation of Pergolesi's seminal comic opera of 1733, The Maid Turned Mistress, before Thos catches up with Danyal Dhondy, the Musical Director of the 2015 EdFringe production who talks about bringing this godparent of modern musical theatre bang up to date with a bawdy new English libretto by Becca Marriott,...