Sunday, May 20

Profumo the Musical to follow Jesus Christ Superstar

Andrew Lloyd Webber seems to be sticking with the idea that after the arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar his next musical will be linked to the Profumo scandal.

Once the ITV1 Superstar search is over and someone has been found to play Jesus, Lord Lloyd Webber plans to take some time off to write his next musical (the last one was Love Never Dies in 2010).

The story will centre on London osteopath Stephen Ward and Conservative War Minister John Profumo was forced to resign from the Cabinet in 1963 for lying to the House of Commons over his affair with Christine Keeler. The brief affair began after he was introduced to her by Ward at Lord Astor's Cliveden country estate  in 1961. Ward subsequently took an overdose of tablets and died three days after being found guilty of living on immoral earnings.

The Lord said: "I'm pleased that I've found a subject that I want to write now," he admitted. It's not - as people will immediately say - a musical about the Profumo Affair and Christine Keeler. It's about the life of this man - and how a man who was probably the most popular, most sought after, most urbane - a figure who you really wanted to meet if you were in London - ended up as a waxwork in the chamber of horrors in Blackpool.

He was the fall guy for what happened in a whole series of events that spun out of control... but the more you look at the story the more it's quite clear that a lot of things that were alleged to have happened probably didn't happen. It’s also very much about how both the press and media put pressure on these very young girls to say things that weren't necessarily true. It's an incredibly interesting subject for today, and it's right at that time when everything was changing, the old Britain was going and The Beatles were just happening
."

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