Did you know that one of the best recordings of Les Miserables is in Hebrew? Or that Mel Brooks wasn’t the first person to want to make a musical of The Producers?
Arts aficionado James Inverne did, plus a whole lot of other musical-theatre trivia. He has written it all down in the newly published Faber Pocket Guide to Musicals. Mr Inverne, the 34-year-old editor of Gramophone magazine, spent two years writing the book.
He tells People: “I thought it would be fairly straightforward because I have spent a lifetime studying and loving musicals.” It includes song lists, behind-the-scenes stories and his hundred greatest musicals, including a ten best and worst. What are they? Reluctant to give too much away, he says: “Among my favourites are Guys and Dolls, My Fair Lady and Sweeney Todd, and there are some unexpected choices up there too.”
Reading-based Mr Inverne has spent three years at Gramophone — his favourite magazine when he was growing up.
He spent more than five years at Time magazine as European Arts correspondent and regularly writes reviews for the Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Telegraph, The Times and Mail on Sunday.
His late grandmother was Bluma Feld, the spirited matriarch of the Cumberland Hotel in Bournemouth. Oh, and as for the Mel Brooks question — it was Eric Idle.
