Face the music

“There may be trouble ahead,” croons Joyce McMillan, Scotland's leading theatre critic, citing Irving Berlin's 'Let's Face the Music and Dance' as “a classic reaction to hard times”. First featured in the 1936 screen musical Follow the Fleet, the song marks a golden age for the genre – a time that also happened to coincide with the Great Depression. Fast forward seven decades and it looks like a similar situation is emerging in 2009.

Put simply, musical theatre has had a phenomenal few years: 2008 box office receipts on the West End passed an impressive £480 million, while the Society of London Theatre recently revealed that this year's takings are up on last summer. It was a revived musical, Oliver! starring Rowan Atkinson, which topped the London billing, with £15 million in advance ticket sales alone.

At this year's Fringe, Musical Theatre@George Square is fast establishing itself as a premier destination for musical-hungry audiences. What's more, Scottish playwright David Greig's first theatre/musical crossover—Midsummer (A Play with Songs)—had the rare pleasure of seeing its Traverse run sell out before the festival began.

So is there a link between deepening global financial troubles and an appetite for musical theatre? Or are key players at the Fringe simply starting to take the genre seriously? Heavyweight critical praise for musical theatre has proved notoriously elusive – no musical has ever won a coveted Fringe First, for instance, and musical producers have railed against the perceived snobbishness of theatre critics towards their commercial success. According to McMillan, the increasing development of new work is certainly playing a vital role. “For a long period, most of the musicals on the Fringe were re-runs of very familiar classic works,” she says, “so people would do Guys and Dolls and that was never of much interest to me since I have to see a lot of new work for the Scotsman's Fringe First awards. But I think what is really encouraging about the situation now is that the very definition of musical theatre is changing.”

Indeed, she sees the success of Greig's Midsummer, which features songs from Ballboy's Gordon McIntyre, as a turning point for the genre. “I suppose in the past musical theatre was not taken seriously at the Fringe, but I think it is beginning to be,” Greig agrees, highlighting Mark Ravenhill and Simon Stephens—both of whom also have productions at the Traverse this year—as examples of 'serious' playwrights who have used or are considering using music or songs in their work. Yet he expresses an apprehension about this shift as well. “The last thing I would want is that, by being taken seriously, musical theatre becomes just another way of excluding a bigger audience from engaging and connecting with work. I think all playwrights should be interested in connecting to as wide an audience as possible with real intention, and music is definitely something that transcends all kinds of barriers.”

Although Greig claims to be simply a visitor in the field of musical theatre, Midsummer's jolly, romantic atmosphere does capture much of the uplifting feeling for which the best musicals are known. Yet not all new musical works encapsulate this carefree air. Hooked, which is enjoying its world premiere at George Square this year, tells the tale of a PR who attempts to balance domestic life with his cocaine addiction and an on-the-side relationship with an Eastern European lap-dancer. Partly based on a true story, it's in stark contrast to the heart-warming, cheery subjects usually taken on by musical theatre, but director Anna Östergren thinks the genre offers the right way to portray the topical issues the show confronts.

“To a certain extent, people might think the story is far-fetched,” she says. “But some of the actresses and I went to a club and spoke to Romanian girls in the same situation and I realised that Hooked is a live version of what's really going on. It has an emotional punch and has something to say beyond pure entertainment.”

But will this rather more sombre subject matter appeal to audiences who may be looking for something more escapist during the economic downturn? “It's true that musicals and the West End are booming during the recession,” Östergren points out, “but then again, Hamlet is selling out too.”

The use of musical theatre as a way of confronting the issues facing today's society is a prime example of how the form is being stretched to its creative limits as more people experiment with its boundaries. And though the subject matter might be different to the musicals of yore, their goal is still the same. “If you look back at the history of the 1930s,” McMillan says, “it seems that musicals can somehow combine a story that touches on the real dilemmas and human issues that they're facing but at the same time uplifts people. It makes them feel that there's light at the end of the tunnel or that they can share the problems that they've got in this very direct emotional way.”

Nevertheless, the critic isn't certain that Fringe venues which concentrate solely on musical theatre are necessarily beneficial to the form. “I'm not sure that having a music theatre specialist venue helps the profile of music theatre,” she explains. “However, I think it helps practitioners to develop, it's a place they can meet like-minded people and have a good host venue, so there are probably quite strong advantages to it in some ways.”

Similarly, Greig feels that sectionalising musical theatre may not be the most creative way to present the form. “I would almost not see it as a genre and more as a way in which you can tell a story. I really happen to like it and I particularly like it because it involves all the possibilities of performance. I also like it because I just like music and songs. Once people start to talk about 'the musical', then I step back. I don't know so much about 'the musical' but I know I do really like it when there's music and songs in a play.”

Ultimately, it's this sense of simplicity that seems to be attracting artists, performers and audiences towards musical theatre at a time when the world's problems are increasing in complexity. “Perhaps at a time when the world is full of quite frightening things," Greig muses, "and when everything feels a little bit up in the air and we don't quite know what will happen next – yes, maybe we do crave some sort of human and universal connection. And that's where music comes in.”