Musicals

Musicals (2009) by James Inverne
Faber and Faber | ISBN: 9780571237517
Condition: Good (as sold by Crappy Old Books)

Ah, the musical. That most improbable of art forms. The only cultural invention bold enough to ask: “What if people who are already overwhelmed by emotion simply… sang about it?” Enter Musicals by James Inverne — a brisk, witty, occasionally knowing tour through a world where jazz hands are a legitimate form of argument and a key change can resolve years of emotional repression.

This 2009 gem from Faber and Faber does what all good theatre should do: it raises the curtain, gives you a confident overture, and then proceeds to guide you through the glittering chaos of showbiz without spilling too much stage blood. Inverne is your amiable backstage guide, nodding toward Broadway, the West End, and those other less glamorous outposts where chorus lines are formed from sheer optimism and municipal arts funding.

Within these perfectly civilised pages you will encounter towering figures of the genre — composers with impossible hair, lyricists who rhymed “love” with “above” and made it sound revolutionary, and producers who stared into financial ruin and thought, “Yes, but what if we add tap dancing?” There are triumphs, flops, revivals, and the delicate science of the standing ovation.

It’s all here: the razzle, the dazzle, the orchestral swells, the backstage rivalries, and that peculiar truth that a musical can be both heartbreakingly sincere and faintly ridiculous at the same time. Inverne writes with affection but not blind devotion — there’s enough wit in the wings to keep even the most hardened non-theatre person entertained.

Condition-wise, this copy is Good. That is to say, it has lived a little. Perhaps it has hummed quietly to itself on a bookshelf. Perhaps it once sat beside a Playbill and a half-folded ticket stub from 2009. It shows honest signs of reading, not trauma. No phantom of the bookshelf here — just a solid, respectable volume ready for its encore.

Ideal for:

• Aspiring producers who believe the answer is always “bigger orchestra.”

• Secret theatre lovers who pretend to prefer “serious drama.”

• Anyone who has ever sung loudly in the car and called it rehearsal.

Take your seats. The overture is about to begin.