This is my response to this week’s Flashback Track Friday prompt, where they asked us to:
Tell us about your favourite musical.
I’ve often thought it strange, that people here will sometimes answer a prompt, and use their response to not answer the prompt, but here we go…
You see, I hate musicals. Detest them!
My knowledge here is current, too, because only this year I watched a movie production of Les Miserables, and…
I wouldn’t mind, but in the case of Les Mis, I read Hugo’s original novel, which was sublime, and have seen several non-musical adaptations, which have been excellent. But as soon as they tried to whine the story, no thank you. Miserable was so apt!
There is (or was) a cinema just behind Leicester Square, in the middle of London, where they show musicals like “The Sound of Music”, and the audience is encouraged to sing along.
My idea of hell.
So, I’m left with musicals from my youth, which do at least contain positive memories. In my teens I was a fan, for a while, of Cabaret. I suspect this was more to do with my interest in history (and Thirties Germany is such an irresistable period to study) than my love of Liza Minelli.
I do have some happy memories from even further back, however. In fact, you know how you remember things from your childhood, and they appear magical? They were that good.
One was the great Willy Wonka, whom I have waxed lyrical about before, but I shall present another favourite today, Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Doolittle, starring the incomparable Rex Harrison. That’s another book that enchants, by the way, a wonderful read for your children or your grandchildren.
Mister Bump 
Noooo musicals are energetic storytelling ! My favorite musical is Mamma Mia which closed on Broadway in 2015 after a 15 year run! Second ( I’m veering somewhat off the question sorry) is Wicked which I think you’d really like
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I fully expected that some poor, misguided people would reply to this post, telling me that they liked musicals.
But I never dreamed you’d be one of them 🤣🤣🤣.
I think you will like my Winddown track on wednesday (wink).
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😂😂😂😂guilty as charged! But I’m a theater and movie junkie
I get lost in the theater world and musicals are a great fantasy escape because of the music!! 😃
Ohhhh Wednesday can’t come too soon sir 😁👍
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Oh well, there’s a mnission for you! Convince me. Like no-one else ever could 🤣
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Mission accepted! Let me give it some thought! I’m always up for a challenge 👏👏😁
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Do you mean the Willy Wonka film (the old one?) I like the Sweeney Todd musical – the lyrics are great!
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Yes, with Willy Wonka, both the book and Gene Wilder. I think for me it was very much a timeframe. Doolittle was ’67, the year I was born, and I think Willy Wonka was 70 or 71. So I’d have watched them both pre-school. The books for both would have come later.
Never seen Sweeney Todd, although I do like Johnny Depp. Trouble is, most of these musicals that people say are good, I never saw, just because the idea itself doesn’t really appeal.
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Johnny Depp’s cockney accent is awful, but it kind of fits the style of the musical and you get used to it…
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Is it like a variation on “floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee”?
Talks like Dick van Dyke, sings like a stray cat 🤣.
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Yes, a bit like that 🤣
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You’re a brave man dissing Les Mis! I love it, guilty as charged! 😂
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I guess being raised on music and performing myself, I love a good musical and i say good because there are those
that do not appeal. I love the musical Les Miserable especially when seeing it on the stage, sometimes a movie
just can’t capture the feel of a live performance. I saw it when it came to DC. The song “Empty Chairs at Empty tables” reduces me to tears. Actually,it makes me sob. lol Nothing like getting lost in someone’s voice as it soars for the high notes and looking for those notes and the breath control it takes to do a lot of what they do. Jesus Christ Superstar
the magnificent of Webber’s writing, plus his Phantom of the Opera and yes, agreeing with Michele I definitely want to see Wicked. ( with a name like mine how could I not?) Willie Wonka, listen to Josh Groban’s version of Imagine from it.
Music and reading are my take me a way places.
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You hear separate songs? I just classified it all as “noise”
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No, it is the whole that makes it enjoyable, the visual and the sound. a well rounded production in all aspects.We all like different things, yours is not music. Trust me I have seen musicals not worth seeing and they have one big song that is considered a show stopper but it doesn’t save the play, take Cats for example. Memory is the only song worth anything from the play. Music is my love and I know enough to know what I like as you do. You just don’t like them.
and that’s what makes the world go round.
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I’m glad you thought of that as music. But I think Mozart or Beethoven might be turning in their graves! Or, indeed, Gene Wilder!
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Ah, another musical hater, thank goodness! When I was a child, my parents would often watch musicals on TV at Christmas or boxing day or someday around that time. Musicals like The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady and the like. I could never comprehend why they enjoyed them. I’ve never read nor seen any adaptation of Les Misérables, so can’t judge that one.
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There was a great adaptation with Depardieu. Spoken, of course. I think that started life as a tv movie and might be as long ago as the Eighties. But it is a great storyline, pity they spoilt it with all their wailing!
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I’m not all that I to musicals, but I did enjoy “Les Mis” (the live stage version, not the movie) and also “Rent” (again, the stage version, not the movie).
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I kind of have to agree with you on this, not my favorite!
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