Cameron Mackintosh The First 50 Years

The anecdotes are fabulously “luvvie”. In a good way. Michael Ball just made me laugh out loud.

I'm in Greece and I'm jealous I can't see her!

Thoroughly enjoyed that. Although they could have made a whole series with the amount of shows he has produced over the years. Most of the stuff I already knew but there was some great archive footage I had never seen before especially Follies and Witches of Eastwick.
Watching it reminded me of when I was at Hey Mr Producer which was now 25 years ago. One of the most memorable nights in the theatre ever.
So sad at the end, however, when they said the Sondheim footage was filmed 10 days before he died. He looked so well.
I think its a documentary to watch again to take everything in.

I was sitting at home, having a tantrum, shouting at the TV:

"Yeah yeah, yadda yadda,  I WANT 'The COLORS of my LIFE!'   I    -    WANT    -    'The   -    Colors   -   OF   -   MY  -     LIIIIIFE'!!!!!!!!!!!'".

It only seemed polite.

Finally watched this and it was certainly well made and I liked the fact most of the interviews were new (even if old stories were still recounted). It was nice that they didn't skip over the early Stiles and Drewe stuff, and Julia McKenzie was very sweet to listen to. No one could doubt Mackintosh's passion for the art form.

That said, it erred very much on the side of being laudatory and seemed consciously to avoid some of the controversies along the way, and you got the feeling that the entire enterprise had to have the rubber stamp of CML in order for it to be aired (EDIT: I just checked and it was basically made by CML - Nick Allott and Tom Schönberg are the producers, and pretty much everyone involved has been hired by CML at some point). So it wasn't quite as 'independent' a documentary as I might personally have liked. For instance, given how much Trevor Nunn is mentioned, you'd think they'd interview him, but then presumably that was a non-starter given the fall-out over Miz. Another example is Cameron's dubious claim that the Albert Hall staging of Phantom was the 'most spectacular production ever' of that show. I think the producers of the Vegas production, not to mention anyone who saw it, would disagree. The most striking instance of 'let's gloss over this one' was when they talked about the production of Follies at the Shaftesbury. They interview Cameron where he insists he improved the show from the original (which he describes as a flop, but given it haemorrhaged at the box office because it was incredibly expensive to produce, is it any more of a flop that the original Sunset?). Yet the documentary makers either don't ask Sondheim or don't show his answer regarding what he thought of the result (to which the answer is he didn't think it improved it and has even stated that he made it 'legally certain' that that version of the show would never be seen again).

It was posted on their Twitter that he’d had a stroke a few years back and it had been a fairly long recovery process.

Two absolutely lovely guys. I wish Cameron would pick up their latest, Becoming Nancy, for a production. Looking forward to “Identical”

Does anyone know if this is being repeated? - normally Sky Arts repeat everything to death but I can't see that this is coming up again.
Annoyingly I missed it.

Thanks.

It's also available on Now TV

I remember working one night in the theatre and everyone was very excited as there was a big "A" Lister in the audience who I had never heard of. However, I was far more excited as Julia McKenzie was also there and I was quite star struck. I've seen her perform many times and she really is one of the best. I plucked up courage at the end to say a few words to her and she was utterly charming.

I liked that bloke who when asked to describe CM in one word, said to the interviewer something along the lines of “ooh you are naughty!”

Slightly off topic- I apologise but why is she no longer performing?

Is she retired?
Is she unwell or physically unable to?

Now that’s the epilogue for the follies movie Dominic Cooke should go for

Was it just me or was Moby Dick the only show that wasnt mentioned alongside Martin Guerre?

Yep - in this case it's not surprising given this documentary film was made by his company, but I was disappointed that the BBC chose a similar angle when they did their radio documentary about Phantom on boxing day, which was just one big advert.

Perhaps the most obvious controversy they decided not to talk about at all was the yellowface in Miss Saigon. They wouldn't be able to get away with that now.


They didn't mention Song and Dance either. I guess it didn't really make sense to mention Avenue Q given Mackintosh only helped to co-produce a transfer and otherwise had nothing to do with it, but then that applies to Hamilton too and he seemed to want to mention that...