Review: RE:IMAGINING MUSICALS EXHIBITION, Victoria and Albert Museum

"Without a song or a dance, what are we?"

Turns out, quite a bit actually.

You might recognise that lyric from Abba's "Thank You For The Music" - a song from the mini-musical, The Girl With The Golden Hair, that was never produced in theatres - and think that "Thank You For The Musicals" is a rather better title than the somewhat clunky "Re:Imagining Musicals". That will be the last negative thought you will have about this wonderful show drawing on 100 items from the National Collection for Theatre and Performance (and plenty more too).

Inevitably, there's too much to take in at one visit (but it's free and continues deep into 2023, so I'll be going as often as some go to Wicked) and every object tells a story.

I felt that shiver one gets in the presence of greatness when up close with the dress Cecil Beaton made for Julie Andrews in the 1958 production of My Fair Lady. Dame Julie would have been 22 and singing, without amplification, eight times per week to packed houses - what a legend! The dress itself needed a lot of highly skilled renovation work on its extraordinary detail and its shantung silk looks gossamer thin - how could anything so slight envelope anything so huge as that talent?

Though one might know the inspirations for individual musicals (West Side Story, Hamilton, Everybody's Talking About Jamie to pick three) it's still a jolt to see the sheer range of sources plundered by writers and producers to deliver one of theatre's trickiest challenges - a successful book. What stories will and won't work on stage appears to be the domain of the alchemist. Cue Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow, who turned their backs on a couple of long forgotten shows about Henry VIII, put the focus on the wives and wrote the postmodern megahit, Six, represented by a very Thierry Mugler-ish costume of studded leather.

Album covers are a treasure trove of 100 years of design trends - the calligraphy, the montages, the colours! You can all but hear the music just by looking at these big garish squares that once contained big black circles. You feel some of that same impact from the posters and playbills and you can't help thinking how lucky our great-grandparents were when they sat down and thought, "South Pacific? I wonder if this'll be any good."

As you would expect, the Victoria and Albert Museum's website provides splendid back-up materials and there are a range of talks and other events held in conjunction with the show.

I left with a feeling of elation mixed with a tiny tinge of regret. The elation was provoked by a show that unapologetically took its subject seriously and refused to turn its nose up at MT, dismissing it as a purely commercial concern for the out-of-towners, fortunately now not taking up seats at the opera (by mistake).

And the regret? Well, even as one marvels at the range and depth of artistic achievement on display, I know some people, even some friends, will not give MT the respect it deserves, perhaps too influenced by singing nuns on Christmas Days long in the past.

Take them to this show - it'll open their eyes and their ears will be next.

Re:Imagining Musicals is at the V&A, South Kensington, until 23 November 2023. Entry is free.

Photo Credits: Sarah Duncan / V&A

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