{"id":1461,"date":"2025-04-11T10:23:47","date_gmt":"2025-04-11T10:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland\/?p=1461"},"modified":"2025-04-11T10:23:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T10:23:47","slug":"sir-tim-rice-a-life-in-musicals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/highlights\/sir-tim-rice-a-life-in-musicals\/04-2025","title":{"rendered":"Sir Tim Rice: A Life in Musicals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This month sees Sir Tim Rice \u2013 exceptional lyricist and creator of many of the world\u2019s most successful musicals \u2013 arrive at Curve Theatre Leicester to host an evening of music, anecdotes and revealing insights from 60 years in the music industry<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ufeffIt could have all gone horribly right. Tim Rice had finished his schooling at Aldwickbury Independent School and Lancing College and was heading for a career in the legal profession. He had even secured a position as an apprenticed clerk at the fabulously Dickensian-sounding Petit & Westlake chambers and was heading for an illustrious career in law. Or\u2026 was he?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019d have retired now or, more probably, I\u2019d have been struck off several times over,\u201d says Tim. \u201cI was never really interested in it and I wasn\u2019t taking very much in.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experiencing similar academic ennui was Andrew Lloyd Webber who at the time was heading off to Magdalen College Oxford to read history. Tim was a pop music fanatic and Andrew was equally keen on American musical theatre. When Tim unsuccessfully petitioned Arlington Books\u2019 Desmond Elliot to commission him to write a book on the history of pop music, he instead suggested a collaboration with the as yet unknown composer, and having taken Desmond\u2019s advice on board, Tim wrote to Andrew, and a meeting was arranged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018I know a young fellow who\u2019s very keen on musical theatre, and maybe you should meet him, as you write songs.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe meeting went well, he was very friendly, still living at his parents\u2019 flat. He began to play a few songs on the piano and I remember thinking that he was a really talented young man.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe said he\u2019d written a musical \u2013 several in fact \u2013 at school, but he didn\u2019t think he was very good at writing lyrics. He was looking for someone to work with and at the time I knew every pop and rock record, and I knew a lot of theatre songs too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat was in April 1965 \u2013 coming up to 60 years ago exactly. We began working together and within a year I thought I had to get out of the legal profession.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI managed to get myself a job at EMI which was the biggest record label in the whole world at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey had The Beatles, of course, but also the Capital label with Frank Sinatra and the Tamla label with Motown and lots of good up and coming names in British pop music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen EMI\u2019s Norrie Paramor set up on his own in 1968 I joined him working as a producer and worked with names like Cliff Richard and The Scaffold. I was very much in a junior position but it was great, I helped out in various departments and learned a lot about the music business\u2026 it was rather more interesting, and actually I was soon earning more than I used to in the legal profession!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI carried on collaborating with Andrew and even though I had come to appreciate how talented he was, I wasn\u2019t sure that we\u2019d ever make a living with the partnership, even though I was really enjoying it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAndrew was contacted by an old school master friend of his based at Colet Court School, who asked us to write an end-of-term musical for the kids, just a one-off thing to perform at the school.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did so, and it was a real success, performed once and then again and then again at other schools. It received some good reviews in educational papers and even one write-up in The Sunday Times courtesy of Derek Jewell whose son was at the school.\u201d \u201cWe only envisaged it as a 20-minute musical but in five years it would become a fully-staged production and would be performed in the West End.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd then, suddenly, we got offers to make an album and though it was a bit risky, we left EMI, signed up with new management who guaranteed us something like \u00a32,500 \u2013 which was quite a lot in those days \u2013 and that was it, we were a full-time writer and a full-time composer, which was a dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPretty soon we came up with the Jesus Christ Superstar album off the back of the original Joseph. It was a hit in the US first, the best-selling album of 1971, and then it exploded into theatres around the world, firstly on Broadway then the West End running for eight years at The Palace Theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wondering where to turn to for inspiration after their success, a show based around PG Wodehouse\u2019s Jeeves was considered. But Tim felt uneasy taking on the task of writing lyrics in a shadow of the writer\u2019s prose and instead found himself fascinated by the story of Eva Peron. Tim had heard in detail about wife of the Argentinian President Juan Peron, courtesy of a documentary about the couple on the car radio on the way to dinner with friends. He travelled to Argentina to research Eva\u2019s life and then returned to Britain, reuniting with Andrew to write Evita.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whilst Andrew\u2019s next venture was Cats, based on TS Eliot\u2019s Old Possum\u2019s Book of Practical Cats, Tim met with Benny Andersson and Bj\u00f6rn Ulvaeus to create Chess, the 1980s hit musical based on the seemingly disparate topics of Cold War era politics, love… and of course Chess. I Know Him So Well from the production was a number-one hit 40 years ago in February and March of 1985 whilst One Night in Bangkok was a hit in no fewer than 12 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing for musical theatre must be a much greater challenge, I suggested to Tim, than conventional songwriting. Each song can exist separately from the next, and there\u2019s no narrative to which to adhere, I suggested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, the opposite, I think,\u201d says Tim. \u201cI\u2019ve always found it easier to write lyrics for a situation, for a scene. I know what a character is trying to say, so there\u2019s something to articulate and I wouldn\u2019t necessarily have that if I was just sitting down to write a pop song.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1991 Disney approached Tim to write original source material for a forthcoming project with the working title King of the Jungle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked which composer he\u2019d prefer to work alongside and Tim named \u2013 and successfully secured a partnership with \u2013 Sir Elton John to create the international hit album and film which would eventually become known as The Lion King. The musical yielded hits from Circle of Life and Hakuna Mutata to Can You Feel The Love Tonight and I Just Can\u2019t Wait to be King.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim also stepped in to work on Disney\u2019s Beauty & The Beast and The Little Mermaid. Also around the same time he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 for his services to music, having composed pieces for HRH Prince Edward for the Queen\u2019s 60th birthday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of the decade Sir Tim published his autobiography, Oh, What a Circus, a sequel to which is anticipated but unlikely until Tim\u2019s schedule ceases to be so busy. For now, at least, there\u2019s a forthcoming tour which is set to be a treat for fans of musical theatre and a thrilling retrospective of six decades in the entertainment industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI talk about various composers I\u2019ve worked with, talk about the hits and the flops and tell stories. I also bring on a few awards which seems a bit like showing off but people genuinely do enjoy seeing them.  It\u2019s like one long anecdote, and we\u2019ve got 15 or 20 songs in the show too, so something for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for future projects one of the most imminent is due for release around November debuting in Birmingham, with Sir Tim and Sir Andrew collaborating the produce several songs for a production based on Sherlock Holmes and The 12 Days of Christmas\u2026 \u201cIt\u2019s interesting,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re enjoying seeing it come together!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ufeffSir Tim Rice is hosting My Life in Musicals: I Know Him So Well, a tour with over 30 dates including an appearance at Leicester\u2019s Curve Theatre on Monday 19th May. To book ticket see www.curveonline.co.uk or www.sirtimricelive.com, or call 0116 242 3595.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For entertainment and live events in May, see our current edition at https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland\/view-magazines?magazine=May-2025<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This month sees Sir Tim Rice \u2013 exceptional lyricist and creator of many of the world\u2019s most successful musicals \u2013…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1462,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[403,186,402,223,401,400,224,399],"class_list":["post-1461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlights","tag-chess","tag-curve","tag-evita","tag-leicester","tag-musical","tag-rice","tag-theatre","tag-tim"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1461"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1486,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions\/1486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pridemagazines.co.uk\/rutland-and-stamford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}