Pocket Guide to Musicals, By James Inverne
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How widely do you draw the circle labelled "musicals"? Should Carmen come inside, or even The Magic Flute? James Inverne doesn't aim for quite so shattering a note, but this smart and witty survey of his eclectic "Top 100" finds room for Porgy and Bess alongside The Rocky Horror Show, Candide with Hairspray, The Lion King and Gilbert & Sullivan, both Cabaret and its parent The Threepenny Opera, Billy Elliot: the musical but also Jerry Springer: the opera.
Plus, of course, the My Fair Ladys, Evitas and South Pacifics, all expertly sketched and placed. Knowing the genre's buffs, I suspect that many will nip straight to Inverne's "ten terrible musicals", featuring such doomed delights as Lionel Bart's Twang!, Mike Reid's Oscar Wilde and the Rod Stewart-Ben Elton collaboration Tonight's the Night. It most certainly was not.
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