What makes this Sydney-bound musical so special for Sir Tim Rice
He’s the man behind some of our most beloved stage musicals, but there’s one show coming to Sydney that holds a special place in Sir Tim Rice’s heart
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His title suggests grandeur, however Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice is far more relaxed than his knighthood might suggest. “Cut the ‘Sir’, I don’t need that,” Rice says, relaxed and without any of the ceremony you’d expect from one who holds so many accolades, which include three Academy Awards, three Golden Globes, five Grammys and three Tonys.
Rice is in fact an EGOT, one of fewer than 20 people to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and a Tony.
Asked what he would prefer to be called, the 78-year-old Brit laughed playfully.
“I’d like to be called Daphne. No, just call me Tim, it is fine,” he says.
Rice is speaking in London ahead of the Australian launch of the new incarnation of Disney’s much loved Beauty and the Beast that opens at the Capitol Theatre on June 14.
It is the first Disney production to hit Sydney since Frozen and will see relative newcomers Shubshri Kandiah and Brendan Xavier in the leads as Belle and Beast.
Rice first became famous for his many collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, another Sir, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar and The Likes of Us, as well as songs for The Wizard of Oz stage production.
With Elton John, yet another Sir, Rice has worked on the likes of A Whole New World from Aladdin and The Lion King’s Can You Feel The Love Tonight.
He, of course, was instrumental in creating the music for the 1994 stage production of musical Beauty and the Beast alongside Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. The musical was based on the Oscar winning film of the same name from three years prior.
The original story of Beauty and the Beast was based on the 1756 fairy-tale of the same name by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. In the current times of all-permeating social media, the message of fitting in, finding love and looking past someone’s outward appearance to what lies inside is just as strong.
“People are fascinated with themselves and often there are more fascinating things than yourself,” Rice says. “Don’t judge a book by its cover – that is the message in a way isn’t it? A first impression is not always the right one.”
The latest stage incarnation of Beauty has been a huge hit in London, where it played at the iconic Palladium. The production has played 37 countries globally, including 13 years on Broadway. It is one of the longest stage show runs in history.
“It has done very well; it is one of those shows like The Lion King which, without in any way talking down to the youngest members of the audience, appeals to all ages. And I think Joseph, if I may be so arrogant, has a bit of that as well.
“I always find that if you aim a show solely for children, it is often rather twee and not actually something that will last. It can be great fun but working on Beauty and on The Lion King and Aladdin, and Joseph, these are all shows which one is aware that children should enjoy but one shouldn’t be afraid as a lyricist of using one or two long words or phrases that young children wouldn’t necessarily know.”
Getting the overall story is most important, he continues.
“It teaches them something as well as having them enjoy the tale and Beauty and the Beast is a story that works on many levels,” Rice says. “Beauty has run a long time because parents don’t mind going to it more than once. Any child will watch something not once or twice, they will watch it 30 times if they can. I got fed up with my kids watching The Lion King but, of course, they love it and they have been to the show many times. The great thing is parents don’t mind seeing it twice. I am talking about all of these shows – there is more to find in it even the second time round even though on the surface it is a fun children’s show, it is more than that.”
Musical theatre, he says, like pop music, movies and other forms of entertainment is equally a place for both political statements and escapism.
“It is a place for anything if it is good,” he says. “I have done a couple of shows like Chess or Evita, which are basically political shows. Even Superstar could be argued as somewhat of a political show. It has to be good, something that you mean. If you don’t believe in your story, you shouldn’t do any show actually.”
Outside of music, Rice is deeply passionate about cricket and he is quick to point out he once met Sir Donald Bradman.
“I have been to Australia many times and have often tried to make it coincide with a cricket tour,” he says. “I was interested in cricket way before I got involved in the theatre. I was only seven or eight when I began getting hooked on cricket and I was never a theatre fan as such until I met Andrew Lloyd Webber really.”
We’re catching up with Rice in London days after the passing of Queen Elizabeth II.
He was made a Knight Bachelor by the Queen in 1994, which entitled him to the title Sir. Reflecting on the late monarch, he remembers her as “a great lady beyond any doubt” whom he was “lucky enough to have met on several occasions”.
“I will always have great, respectful memories of her,” he says. “I was very lucky to be around when she was. To have had the Queen on the throne for 70 years was a great privilege for our country. She was a wonderful lady. I mean, I’m not saying anything particularly original here because she was immensely popular.”
The Queen, and her late husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, shared Rice’s love of the game and were once reported to have “snuck out of a royal engagement to catch the cricket highlights”.
Rice famously set up his own team in the 1970s and, with Lloyd Webber, wrote a short musical titled Cricket that was performed for Her Majesty on her 60th birthday in 1986.
His last meeting with the Queen was at Windsor Castle.
“Funnily enough, again through cricket, not that long ago, my cricket team played the royal household at Windsor and she used to come to those matches in a totally private capacity and it was very informal,” he says. “She graciously agreed to pose in a cricket photograph with my team, which is just wonderful. So me and 10 or 12 of my friends have a wonderful picture of us sitting in a cricket team formation with the Queen in the middle of the front row. It is terrific.”
With a laugh, he continues: “If I was around with Henry VIII I don’t think I would be quite so enthusiastic about the monarch.”
Rice believes the Queen’s impartiality to have been one of her greatest contributions.
“I think one of the great things about the monarchy, as long as you have a decent monarch, is that it has, obviously, continuity but there’s no political agenda,” he says. “She was famous for not expressing personal views and, therefore, she was something constant that the country could rally round.”
He adds: “I’m a monarchist beyond any doubt. We were all lucky, the country, but I was lucky in that the bulk of my life, she was on the throne. I’m old enough to remember when she wasn’t.”
Rice was seven when Queen Elizabeth II’s father, King George VI, died at the age of 56. It was around 1965 that Rice, then aged just 20, first met Lloyd Webber.
“I knew all of the songs from the great shows, my parents had all the albums – My Fair Lady, Westside Story, all of the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows,” he explains.
“I loved the songs but I never went to the shows. We didn’t live in London. I was much more into pop music and rock’n’roll than I was into theatre but I did love the music theatre albums and knew all of the songs.”
Rice still loves his classic pop and rock.
“I don’t follow the current music scene in the pop world really,” he says. “I am aware of what is going on but if an old rocker comes to town like Marty Wilde, I am there.”
Rice is a man with a sense of humour. He regularly jokes during our half-hour together.
“Obviously Brad Pitt would be immediately signed up for the role,” is his response when asked who would play him if a stage show, movie or TV miniseries was made about his life. “If that ever happened, which I hope it doesn’t, I would rather not be around at the time.”
So what does Rice consider his greatest legacy and contribution?
“I don’t know, I think Joseph will be around as long as any of them because it has this great appeal for all ages,” he says. “Joseph is what got Andrew (Lloyd Webber) and I going.
“And I think in 100 years’ time there will still be people doing Joseph – that is a very arrogant statement for you. It has been going for 50 years and I don’t see why it couldn’t keep going for a little bit longer.”
Originally published as What makes this Sydney-bound musical so special for Sir Tim Rice
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