From our UK edition
Going to see the new smash hit show Matilda the other night, I was once again reminded that, as a creative musical force, the contemporary West End musical is dead. It contains the sort of music you only find in musicals; it has no relevance to contemporary music; it exists in a creative ghetto. The musical has become divorced from popular musical culture. Theatre critics seem to have no value system for judging the music in musical theatre.
From our UK edition
Wrocław in Poland was Breslau in Germany until 1945. We’ve travelled here to record the orchestral parts of the music we’ve written for a ballet, The Most Incredible Thing, which opens at Sadler’s Wells in March. It takes me several days to work out how to pronounce the Polish name of the city. Some foreigners call it ‘Vratslav’ but apparently the correct pronunciation is ‘Vrotswaff’ (I think). Actually no one seems to mind. We’re recording in the old Große Saal des Polnischen Rundfunks built in Breslau in the Nazi era as a concert hall for radio broadcasts.
From our UK edition
On tour one develops air-conditioning paranoia. (I’ve just returned from a two-month Pet Shop Boys’ tour of North and South America, from Montreal to Lima.) You approach your latest hotel room with dread. How noisy is the air-conditioning? Can you turn it off? Is your room on the top floor directly under the main air-conditioning unit and therefore literally vibrating? When you check into your room during the day you often don’t notice the noise, but returning late after the show, the street noise having died down, you can become cruelly and sleeplessly aware of it. It’s time for the early-hours room change. The charmingly helpful hotel staff can never hear the noise but gently indulge you. Then there’s the freezing air-conditioning in dressing rooms.