Jason Robert Brown: The Last Five Years (original cast recording)

Week 17

THE PITCH

So this album is my surefire bet (as close as it gets!)!

The Last Five Years is probably my all time favourite musical, even though in many ways, it’s nothing like a musical…. Or perhaps it’s like the most pure musical you’ll come across.

Imagine a musical conducted on a mainly empty stage. Imagine a musical with a cast of two. Imagine a musical spanning five years of a relationship. I don’t want to tell you much more.

In the original staging, there are just two of them and yet they’re also alone all the way through, except one moment right in the middle (you’ll know the moment) in which they have a duet.

But it’s not about the staging. In fact, I don’t think it even needs it.

I love this musical so much. I think it opens up the insides of what it’s like to have a relationship, particularly within the theatre/creative industry. I think it explores our relationship with ambition and ‘talent’ and whilst it has moments of great joy, it is also heartbreaking.

I’d love to offer you some questions (I’ve a favourite one) about the piece and there’s loads I could talk to you about it after you’ve listened to it but I don’t want to spoil anything. The discoveries contained within the first listen are precious.

So, start at the beginning, and listen all the way through to the end and enjoy!

PS do not listen to the movie version!!

Ali Anderson-Dyer

MY RESPONSE

I like a musical, Ali, but I have a couple of fundamental problems with you giving me this to listen to. You see, for me, a musical is all about the spectacle. I want people in matching costumes to start belting out the chorus while dancing around the stage; I want some gorgeous, skilful tap-dancing; I want people to pretend to be clockwork dolls; I want staircases to heaven covered in improbably coiffed angels. I was brought up on movie musicals. Those fabulous Hollywood confections that used to fill the daytime TV schedules in the school holidays: Fred Astaire and Judy Garland and Doris Day. The family films of my childhood: Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Sound of Music, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang… Words with no accompanying spectacle are going to have to be unbelievably good to convince me that listening alone is worth the bother.

The second problem here is one I have with a lot of musicals. In those old musicals, the songs broke into the action. You could have taken them out and you still would have had a coherent story. They added colour and mood and told you what was inside a character’s head. What they didn’t do is what the songs do here which is to actually tell the story, including some of the dialogue. I guess it’s a perfectly legitimate way to tell a story, but I find that these types of songs lack an essential ‘song’ quality. What do I mean by this? (**Girds loins to try to explain something musical**) Usually a song has verses and choruses which repeat a few times, and although these might change a bit during the course of the song, they’ll be recognisable. There might be a bridge which has a contrasting tune at some point but it’ll return to the recognisable pattern. That is, to my mind, a very satisfying way for a song to work. But songs from musicals where all the narrative and dialogue is contained within the music don’t work that way. There may be a certain amount of verse-chorus pattern, but then the whole thing will go off kilter and end up somewhere completely different and sometimes they’re just basically talk-singing with a tune in the background. For me, that means these ‘songs’ don’t work as songs. (I am aware that lots and lots of people who love musicals will disagree with me.)

Specifics about this album? It was hard not to try to imagine how it would be staged (I’m going to have to take your word for it that it works because it just sounds wildly tedious to me). I liked some of the music a bit, where it was playing off various types of musical theatre tunes. I thought the premise of the two timelines was an intriguing idea but I’m not sure it delivered anything particularly insightful. I had no empathy for either of the characters which didn’t help sell it to me. And I rather wish I hadn’t known the relationship was going to end up failing right from the start. I’ve given The Lat Five Years a go, but I think it’s pretty unlikely I’ll be listening to it again.

So, there is my two pennies worth, Ali. I look forward to your questions…

WHAT ELSE I LISTENED TO THIS WEEK (not much due to Ongoing All-Consuming Drama)

Mekons Horror

The La’s The La’s

Paul Weller Stanley Road

Yo La Tengo Fakebook