At the age of 79, Sir Tim Rice has embarked on a tour of regional venues with his reflective musical show My Life in Musicals, and at the halfway stage appeared at The Hexagon in Reading with a band of four excellent musicians and four wonderful singers. In a delightful meander through stories and music from his 59-year career, they thoroughly entertained the musical theatre audience and dropped in a few less well-known elements to add to the interest. We were reminded what a marvellous witty lyricist he is and obviously what a reliable collaborator he is with the composers whom he has worked with.

Inevitably, the show started with his first major hit with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat, and ‘Any Dream Will Do’ together with ‘Close Every Door’. From the first moments, we could see that the singers were having fun performing his work in his presence. The songs are shared amongst them, with John Addison and Sandy Grigelis playing the likes of Joseph, Judas, Che, the American and Russian chess players, and Timon and Pumbaa, and Katie Brill and Shonagh Daly sharing the roles of Evita, Peron’s mistress, Florence and Svetlana.

Rice provides the commentary filling in stories about his career and frequently name dropping those he worked with, with a false modesty and self-depreciating humour. We heard about his first band the Aardvarks (like Cliff and the Shadows) before he met Andrew Lloyd Webber (who he referred to as ALW) and the fact that they created Joseph for a one-off school concert in 1968. He told how the five colours he wrote for the musical were expanded by the children to twenty nine and helped create the iconic chorus.

Jesus Christ Superstar was next with Katie singing ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him’, which launched the show accidently as a record promotion before it became a stage show. Amusingly, he demonstrated how that tune had been originally written as a pop song, ‘Kansas Morning’, which had been re-worded for the show. Sandy delivered ‘Heaven On Their Minds’, full of powerful rock energy.

The story on a radio programme in 1973 that gave him the inspiration for Evita was next and a recollection about how, as a child, he had collected stamps from Argentina with her image on. We heard Shonagh sing ‘I’d Be Surprisingly Good For You’, John sing ‘High Flying, Adored’, and Katie sing ‘Another Suitcase, Another Hall’.

He then showed another side of his writing revealing that he wrote the lyrics for David Essex’s Christmas hit ‘A Winter’s Tale’ (sung here by John and Sandy) and the James Bond theme for Octopussy with John Barry, ‘All Time High’. The first act closed with stories of collaborating with Bjorn and Benny from ABBA on Chess and the songs ‘I Know Him So Well’ and the magnificent ‘Anthem’, then Act 2 opened with the brilliant ‘One Night in Bangkok’ from the same show.

There was a hint of regret that his next selection from Aida, written with Elton John, has yet to be staged in the UK, although it ran for 1850 performances on Broadway but the two songs, ‘I Know the Truth’ and ‘A Step Too Far’ stood up well against the better-known numbers. Another unheard song was introduced written with Gary Barlow, ‘A Matter of Love’.

Throughout the evening, we had been shown his Emmy, Tony and Grammy awards, and finally we got to his Oscars with three songs, ‘You Must Love Me’ (from the film version of Evita), ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight’ (from The Lion King) and ‘A Whole New World’ (from Aladdin), and you sensed these were his proudest achievements.

Of course, he held back his greatest songs to a grand celebratory finale, with Shonagh delivering a spell binding version of ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’, followed by singing and joining together for the fun ‘Hakuna Matata’, the uplifting ‘Circle of Life’, and the joyous ‘Any Dream Will Do’ with Rice adding to the chorus!

This was a delightful evening with a great sound from the four-piece band, well mixed with the outstanding vocals, simply but well lit and at the centre of it, a man whose writing career has been amazing and who seemed pleased to be sharing some insights with enthusiastic musical theatre fans.

**** Four stars

Reviewed by: Nick Wayne

Tim Rice: My Life in Musicals tours across the country until 14 May.