Musical Mondays #5

Welcome back to Musical Mondays!

In case you’re new here, this column is a peek into the depths of the Musical Theatre archive, where I will showcase a few musicals that I think deserve a little more love. You can read my past posts by clicking here!

They’re the smaller, niche shows that not everyone will be familiar with – and that’s the point! They deserve just as much love as the big name shows, so every second Monday I’ll list a few, give you some comparisons, and a few examples of songs for you to check out.

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City Of Angels is up on the list of my favourite musicals ever. It blows my mind that people haven’t heard of this one. With music by Cy Coleman (Sweet Charity, On the Twentieth Century), the show is a noir-comedy with an incredibly complex narrative. Stine, a writer, struggles with his crime book following notorious detective Stone. The show often uses incredible stagecraft to show the divide between fiction and reality, greyscale and colour. I cannot speak higher of the score or the book, and implore everyone to go listen to the recording.

Standout track/s: Funny; You’re Nothing Without Me/I’m Nothing With You

You’d like this if you enjoy…: Cy Coleman; Sweet Charity; Chicago

Click here to listen to the City of Angels cast recording.

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The In-Between is a concept album focusing around a young girl who becomes trapped in the ‘in-between,’ a limbo like place between parallel worlds. Unfortunately, only the concept album is available, but I highly recommend taking a listen – the whole album is available on Soundcloud, and features some of the West End’s biggest names (Hadley Fraser, Lauren Samuels and Julie Atherton are just a few!). The music is some of the most beautiful, poignantly written theatre I’ve heard in some time. 

Standout track/s: Someone You’d Be Proud Of; When I Was Nineteen; Beyond the Door

You’d like this if you enjoy…: Finding Neverland; Matilda

Click here to listen to the The In-Between cast recording.

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It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman is unlike any of the other shows I’m listing here, in the sense that it’s… not great. But the story around it is fun, and some of the music is definitely worth listening to. I definitely still think it’s something worth having a look at (or listening to), especially if you want to expand your theatrical horizons.

Standout track/s: You’ve Got Possibilities

You’d like this if you enjoy…: Superheroes; any sort of ‘Golden Age’ musical really.

Click here to listen to the It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman cast recording.