Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, one of the UK’s most successful creative duos, appear to have fallen out over a new project.
The pair have worked together on some of the biggest hits in musical theatre, from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat to Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar, picking up multiple awards including dual “EGOT” status, with Joseph, Superstar, and Evita collectively winning Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Awards.
So it will come as a shock to fans that Lloyd Webber has apparently withdrawn his music from a production of Sherlock Holmes and the 12 Days of Christmas, which premiered at the Birmingham Rep theatre last year to positive reviews.
The project, a murder mystery about a serial killer bumping off the cast of West End shows in the run-up to the festive season, marked Lloyd Webber and Rice’s first collaboration in 40 years.
Rice told the Times on Wednesday (21 October) that his former partner’s songs had been “ditched” after Lloyd Webber allegedly withdrew his score.
“Andrew really didn’t want to continue with the show,” he said. “He basically withdrew his score. He really did not feel it was the sort of thing he wanted to do. Andrew is more concerned with much bigger productions.”
However, in his own statement to the publication, Lloyd Webber disputed this account and said the show’s producers, Donald and Eva Rice – the children of Tim Rice – had “decided not to use the music I composed for the Birmingham production for two reasons”.
He claimed that he was told further work was needed on the project, which would have been “impossible” with his schedule.
Lloyd Webber also alleged that he was asked to “sign away” his rights in advance for five years “without any right of approval over its use in a production I hadn’t seen and with a team I had never worked with before!”
He said that the two issues meant that he felt he was not being granted “basic approval which even a rookie writer would expect”.
The Independent has contacted Rice’s representatives for further comment.
Lloyd Webber had previously warned that he and Rice were unlikely to team up for a full musical again: “I mean,” he told the Times, “Tim doesn’t need to. He’s written The Lion King.”
His own website describes Rice as one of his “great collaborators”. They first met in 1965 when Rice, then an aspiring lyricist, wrote to Lloyd Webber who was seeking a writing partner.
“I was told you were looking for a ‘with it’ writer of lyrics,” he wrote. “I wondered if you consider it worth your while meeting me. I may fall far short of your requirements, but anyway, it would be interesting to meet up – I hope!”
The pair’s first production was inspired by the biblical story of Joseph, to which they applied their smart blend of rock, pop and calypso to a full-length production that opened at the Edinburgh International Festival in 1972.
Joseph… opened later that year in London’s West End at the Roundhouse, starring Gary Bond as Joseph, and has since gone on to become one of the most successful musicals, with a long-running Broadway production and a 1999 film adaptation starring Donny Osmond.
Separately, Lloyd Webber is also known as the mastermind behind hit musicals including The Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Sunset Boulevard, Starlight Express and School of Rock, while Rice is renowned as the lyricist to the Lion King songs “Circle of Life” and “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”, the latter winning him and Elton John an Oscar for Best Original Song in 1995.
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