Interview: Composer & lyricist Alexander S. Bermange on I WISH MY LIFE WERE LIKE A MUSICAL
Photo credit: Nick Brittain
Composer and lyricist Alexander S. Bermange’s award-winning musical revue I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical is heading up to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer. We caught up with Alexander about the show and future plans.
What made you decide to write I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical?
When I started giving performances of my comic songs (after years of only singing them on the radio), I thought it would be fun to have a couple of West End musical theatre performers as special guests – and equally fun to write one or two numbers about life as a musical theatre performer for them to sing. The songs seemed to resonate both with the artists and with our audiences.
At a similar time, when a theatre piece of mine was being performed on a cruise, I was struck by the frequency with which passengers would ply our cast with questions about their lives and careers, and seemed surprised to learn that – contrary to what the glorified, idealised version of the industry that songs such as There’s No Business Like Show Business might suggest – they were not chauffeured from front door to stage door, put up in five-star hotels around the country, and living a life of glitz and glamour. Far from it! And I wondered whether there might be an appetite for a show about musical theatre performers, following their lives and presenting their experiences “warts and all”, which could be revelatory to “lay people”, relatable to those in the industry, and amusing for both.
Where did you draw from for the content? Are the characters and experiences based on real people and real life?
The characters and experiences are indeed based on real people and real life! Writing the lyrics gave me the opportunity to seek accounts from many performer friends of their most memorable – and funniest – real-life experiences that related to the subjects that I had in mind, from awful auditions to debilitating dance routines to mid-performance mishaps. The music, meanwhile, often provided me with a chance to indulge in my love of creating original melodies that are fully or partly comprised of snatches of famous songs thematically linked to my own. For example, most of the show’s opening number – entitled ‘The Opening Number’ – is made up of short musical quotations of well-known opening numbers.
If you could cast anyone (alive or dead) to appear in the musical, who would be your dream line-up?
It is difficult to have a single dream line-up for this musical, as – largely owing to its comedic nature and the resulting scope for fresh interpretations by new performers – different artists can bring unique qualities to the same role and be equally mesmerising (as has been borne out by the various casts in the incarnations of the show that have been staged to date). That said, my current dream line-up genuinely is the four fantastic West End regulars comprising our new Edinburgh company: Carl Douglas, Grace Farrell, Hannah Taylor and Harry Winchester. They have appeared in some of my favourite shows in London; they all excel vocally, choreographically and comedically; and it has been a real treat to see and hear the magic they have all been working with my writing.
What’s the funniest situation that you’ve found yourself in, in a theatrical environment?
I find it funny when audience members have particularly distinctive, explosive or protracted laughs. Their laughter is infectious and becomes a source of as much amusement to me as whatever set them off in the first place! During past performances of this show, some audience members have guffawed so hysterically that they have sounded as though they were about to explode; being on stage at the piano, I have had to be very careful not to “lose it” myself!
Do you have any other ideas that you are currently working on or would like to write about?
I tend to have several projects on the go at any one time, so I have a few other pieces that are in varying stages of development. These include musical adaptations of three much-loved novels by bestselling authors – Spike Milligan’s The Looney, Carole Matthews’ The Chocolate Lovers’ Club, and Tamsyn Murray’s My So-Called Haunting (obviously I’m attracted to writers with surnames beginning with M…!), and a musical revue that is similar to I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical in terms of form, scale and tone, but very different in terms of subject matter… Watch this space!
I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical is playing at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 3-28 August, with tickets available here.