50 Favourite Musicals: 40: SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM (1976) (Stephen Sondheim / various)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1976, Mermaid Theatre

First seen by me: 1986, Donmar Warehouse

Productions seen: Two

Score: Stephen Sondheim / various 
Book: Ned Sherrin

Plot:  Three singers and a narrator explore the songwriting genius of Stephen Sondheim, spanning his first 19 years of writing for stage and screen.

Five memorable numbers: LOSING MY MIND, I'M STILL HERE, CAN THAT BOY FOXTROT, BROADWAY BABY, I REMEMBER

David Kernan was appearing in Stephen Sondheim's A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC at the Adelphi in 1975 when he was asked by Cleo Laine and John Dankworth to arrange a trio of fundraisers for their theatre in Berkshire.  He decided on a tribute to Sondheim, asked Millicent Martin and Julia McKenzie to join him and Ned Sherrin to do links between the songs.  Cameron Mackintosh, recently started out as a producer, saw it and produced it the following year at the Mermaid Theatre, which had previously been the home for two similar songwriter tributes COWARDY CUSTARD and COLE - both of which Julia McKenzie had appeared in.  The show was such a success that it quickly transferred to the Wyndhams where it ran for over a year before transferring to the Garrick for another year.  In 1977 the show - in true coals to Newcastle style - opened on Broadway where it was nominated for Best Musical as well as the whole cast being nominated too.  The show is credited with gaining Sondheim a bigger audience in the UK - of the ten musicals primarily featured, only half had been produced previously in the West End.  After falling in love with Julia McKenzie in GUYS AND DOLLS in 1982, I quickly sought out the cast recording which blew me away; 40+ years later, so many of McKenzie, Martin and Kernan's performances are still nigh-on definitive.  I finally had a chance to see it when Kernan staged a tenth anniversary production as part of his Show People series of shows at the Donmar, with the wonderful pairing of female powerhouses Diane Langton and Angela Richards with the men represented by Tim Flavin and Kernan (now the narrator).  Subsequent productions has attempted to drop in numbers from the post-1976 years and it is still a popular production to stage both here and abroad.  I suspect this is primarily because the piece attempts - to quote Ned Sherrin - "to explore three propositions, Sondheim is the best lyric writer of our time; the most adventurous composer of musicals; and the most considerable musical dramatist."  They succeeded.

Here is Millicent Martin on the 1977 Tony Awards giving her nuanced but steely version of 'I'm Still Here' from FOLLIES, as I said, near-definitive.