Andy The Loud Welder

The ‘Musical’ bandwagon must have quite an impressive weight-limit. Everybody seems to be jumping on it regardless of merit.

As a genre The Musical has always been flawed for two main reasons. Firstly it is no more than a poor-man’s opera, and secondly it is unbelievable. People don’t walk around conversing with other people in song. For a Musical to work then you really have to suspend your disbelief, and for this to happen the end product has got to be something special.

Something like the Rodgers & Hammerstien classics from a more innocent, and yes, believable age. Or something like Lars Von Trier’s film "Dancer In The Dark" where he subverts the format. Sadly most of the Musicals dished up today are dross disguised as pseudo-culture for the masses. Let’s plunder the treasure chest of literature and dumb it down in song: Victor Hugo’s "Les Miserables" as a sing-song on the barricades or T S Eliot’s poetry sung by a bunch of dorks dressed up as cats. Can’t these people concentrate long enough to read a book or watch a play without needing the characters to burst into song? Who are the culprits that create this rubbish apart from Andy the Loud Welder, and where did he come from in any case?