Sir Tim Rice: A Life in Musicals

This month sees Sir Tim Rice – exceptional lyricist and creator of many of the world’s most successful musicals – arrive at Curve Theatre Leicester to host an evening of music, anecdotes and revealing insights from 60 years in the music industry

It 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… was he?

“No, I’d have retired now or, more probably, I’d have been struck off several times over,” says Tim. “I was never really interested in it and I wasn’t taking very much in.” 

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’ 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’s advice on board, Tim wrote to Andrew, and a meeting was arranged.

“He said, ‘I know a young fellow who’s very keen on musical theatre, and maybe you should meet him, as you write songs.’”

“The meeting went well, he was very friendly, still living at his parents’ flat. He began to play a few songs on the piano and I remember thinking that he was a really talented young man.”

“He said he’d written a musical – several in fact – at school, but he didn’t 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.”

“That was in April 1965 – 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.”

“I managed to get myself a job at EMI which was the biggest record label in the whole world at the time.”

“They 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.”

“When EMI’s 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… it was rather more interesting, and actually I was soon earning more than I used to in the legal profession!”

“I carried on collaborating with Andrew and even though I had come to appreciate how talented he was, I wasn’t sure that we’d ever make a living with the partnership, even though I was really enjoying it.”

“Andrew 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.” 

“We 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.” “We 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.”

“And 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 £2,500 – which was quite a lot in those days – and that was it, we were a full-time writer and a full-time composer, which was a dream come true.”

“Pretty 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.”

Wondering where to turn to for inspiration after their success, a show based around PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves was considered. But Tim felt uneasy taking on the task of writing lyrics in a shadow of the writer’s 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’s life and then returned to Britain, reuniting with Andrew to write Evita.

Whilst Andrew’s next venture was Cats, based on TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, Tim met with Benny Andersson and Björn 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.

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’s no narrative to which to adhere, I suggested.

“No, the opposite, I think,” says Tim. “I’ve always found it easier to write lyrics for a situation, for a scene. I know what a character is trying to say, so there’s something to articulate and I wouldn’t necessarily have that if I was just sitting down to write a pop song.”

In 1991 Disney approached Tim to write original source material for a forthcoming project with the working title King of the Jungle. 

Asked which composer he’d prefer to work alongside and Tim named – and successfully secured a partnership with – 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’t Wait to be King.

Tim also stepped in to work on Disney’s 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’s 60th birthday.

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’s schedule ceases to be so busy. For now, at least, there’s 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.

“I talk about various composers I’ve 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’s like one long anecdote, and we’ve got 15 or 20 songs in the show too, so something for everyone.”

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… “It’s interesting,” he says. “We’re enjoying seeing it come together!”

Sir Tim Rice is hosting My Life in Musicals: I Know Him So Well, a tour with over 30 dates including an appearance at Leicester’s Curve Theatre on Monday 19th May. To book ticket see www.curveonline.co.uk or www.sirtimricelive.com, or call 0116 242 3595.

For entertainment and live events in May, see our current edition at https://www.pridemagazines.co.uk/rutland/view-magazines?magazine=May-2025