Richard Curtis

A Fab Musical

The Hired Man

By

Astoria Theatre order from our bookshop

I cannot deny that I went to The Hired Man armed with prejudices. When I, a mere sapling, left university, I was interviewed for a job at LWT by the writer of the book of the musical, Mr Melvyn Bragg, and he selected me, out of what I believe were literally hundreds of candidates, to receive a letter signed by his secretary saying I was wholly unsuitable for the job and shouldn’t have applied. As for Howard Goodall, the lyricist, composer and musical director of the show, he was a close friend of mine a few years ago, and, it later appeared one gruesome evening, an even closer friend of my then fiancee. So I took my seat at the Astoria in Tottenham Court Road with high hopes of theatrical disappointment, slightly buoyed by the reservations of some other critics.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    • 'Munch’s later works show us a man liberated from the torments that gave rise to some of the best-known early works… ,
    • 'We read from left to right and from start to finish. Or do we?' Stuart Hannabus considers the merits of reading i… ,
    Follow Us