Celebrating World Piano Day 2025 with Sir Tim Rice
To celebrate World Piano Day 2025, James Rampton chats to Sir Tim Rice about his life, career and forthcoming UK theatre tour My Life In Musicals: I Know Him So Well. Sir Tim Rice graces the stage at Leeds Grand Theatre on Sun 18 May 2025.
Written by James Rampton
A life in musicals, and on tour!
What great news that you are touring the country once again with your terrific new show, My Life In Musicals: I Know Him So Well. What made you want to go on the road?
Over the years, I had done quite a few shows like this, mainly for charity, and also on cruise liners. The show features songs with my lyrics, most of which, I’m very happy to say, are quite well known. I would tell what I hoped were amusing and/or entertaining stories about how each song happened – and tales about the great composers with whom I wrote the songs – Andrew Lloyd Webber, Elton John, Alan Menken, Bjorn and Benny and one or two others. I was supported by a live band and four top-class singers – two guys, two girls – who between them would let rip (brilliantly) with the vocals. It was tremendous fun.
Do you enjoy interacting with your fans at the shows?
Yes. Both on stage and off. On stage, we always get everyone standing at the end singing along to Any Dream Will Do. I don’t think they are standing up to get out of the theatre first. It’s lovely that stuff I wrote half a century ago is still hitting home.
After the show, it’s really nice to meet people – the ones who like my stuff anyway…
At most shows, someone I haven’t seen for years comes to say hello backstage afterwards – maybe an old school friend or a performer in one of my early shows – and that’s always a delight.
The power of storytelling in songwriting
When you’re working on a musical, is the story always paramount?
Yes. When we were creating Evita, for example, both the composer and the lyricist had to know what was planned for each scene before a word or a note had been written. I think Evita is Andrew’s best score. Time and again, he would come up with a melody and ideas for orchestration which was perfect for the storyline. Story is always king. A good musical, like a good play, needs to establish where it’s going, or might go, and what the characters are going to grapple with, pretty early on. If you can get that settled in the first five or 10 minutes of the show, then you should be off and running.
Is it a very gratifying experience to hear an entire audience singing along to your songs?
I’m glad they know the words, as that’s the only bit I’ve done! Although funnily enough, almost the most popular bit of Any Dream Will Do is when everybody goes, ‘Ah, ah-ah’ – which isn’t even a lyric! If you have a great story, it inspires you to write something better than if you were just writing a random, out-of-context song. I’m not very good at that because I keep thinking, “Why am I doing this, other than in the hope of getting a hit, which is not really the best reason to write something?”
Can you give us an example?
A song that’s become very popular is Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina. I would not have written a lyric that is a kind of political statement doubling as a love song. It’s a very dishonest, cynical speech. One critic at the time said (not politely) that it was just a string of clichés. But that’s exactly what it’s meant to be! It was written not as a pop song, but as an insincere political speech, and I would never have come up with that without a story to start with.
Reflections and future projects
Of all of the marvelous songs you’ve written, do you have a favourite?
It sounds very arrogant to say so, but there are quite a lot I like. I would not say any one of them is the best, though. I like High Flying, Adored from Evita, and Heaven on Their Minds from Jesus Christ Superstar.
What are you working on now?
I’m keeping my hand in by writing a few songs for the odd movie – if asked, and I have been. But I’ve also written a few light-hearted songs with none other than Andrew Lloyd Webber for a forthcoming comedy entitled Sherlock Holmes and the 12 Days of Christmas. It’s a very funny play featuring Holmes and Watson on the trail of a serial killer who is knocking people off in Victorian London theatreland, inspired by the well-known Christmas song, The 12 Days of Christmas.
Is there one phrase you would use to sum up your career?
What happened?
