Book review - "Coloured Lights" by Kander and Ebb

I first became aware of Kander and Ebb because William Goldman writes in his memoirs how Kander was his best friend from childhood. Kander only mentions Goldman once in passing - the fact that he wrote a flop musical with the Goldmans, A Family Affair - this was before he teamed with Ebb. 

He and Ebb had a flop (well, not big flop, sort of flop) musical, Flora the Red Menace, then did Cabaret, then flop The Happy Time (the saga of which is told in Goldman's brilliant The Season), then 70, Zorba, Chicago, The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Steel Pier. Kander and Ebb seem to do better with their revivals than original productions - Chicago was far more successful revived than in its original production, ditto Spider Woman, Zorba (where Kander and Ebb admit they softened the material), one of their most successful productions was a juke box musical (i.e. a collection of their old songs), and even Cabaret which did well the first time did even better with the Sam Mendes revival. Even composers who are still writing have better luck with remakes!

This is a bright, lively memoir, a bit different because it is done in the form of a dialogue between the two, which is highly appropriate. It is a bit depressing at times to see how close musicals come to failure, how talented people need licence to fail (where they the last composers allowed something like Flora the Red Menace?). 

Some great stories - the get stuck into Frank Sinatra, we hear about Martin Scorsese's disastrous attempt to direct The Rink (of which I was unaware - he would film rehearsals go home and edit the rehearsals!!), their encounters with tricky stars including Bob Fosse on Chicago. 

These books always have an insoluble problem: you want to listen to the songs, so it's like it should be accompanied by a CD or something. And at times you want more eg how about a little more on why they thought Jill Haworth was OK in Cabaret, and thoughts on Judi Dench. Also with the recent death of Ebb it feels as though it needs another edition or something.

One thing I would add - when talking about the making of the film Chicago they get stuck into some young executive who was apparently suggesting to Larry Gelbart, who wrote an early draft of the script, that he insert a love interest for Roxie just like in the Ginger Rogers musical version of the same story, Roxie Hart. They go on and on about what a silly idea this was and how dare this young whippersnapper make this suggestion to Gelbart. But that's not such a dumb idea, it doesn't knock out its soul and it has been done before in the 1942 film - the young exec should have been given credit for at least speaking from an informed position. I know when you make a movie you get a lot of dumb comments but that's not one, as is question a scriptwriter should be able to answer other than with "I've been doing this a long time".