A Little Bit Naughty

This chapter considers the British musical over the last thirty years. As pop operas continued to appear, Chess (1986), Tim Rice's collaboration with Benny Anderson and Björn Ulvaes (from the Swedish pop group ABBA), was considered a classy example, centered on a rivalry of chess champions. ABBA's catalogue in the jukebox show Mamma Mia! (1999) creates a line-up of point numbers fitted into an innocuous story. In comparison, Chess tells of globally dangerous affairs of state and is very precisely musicalized with just one incongruous number, “One Night In Bangkok,” which would seem to have been created solely to guarantee a big hit song. Claude-Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil, understanding that the proper launching site for an international success was London or New York, gave the West End Miss Saigon (1989) and Martin Guerre (1996). With such serious musicals as Girl From the North Country (2017) and the pop-opera cycle commanding the scene, musical comedy as such started to become scarce, though Spamalot (Broadway 2005; West End 2006) showed the comedy musical is still capable of claiming smash hit status.