This Is Your Life: Andrew Lloyd Webber 2

Sir Andrew LLOYD WEBBER (1948-)

This Is Your Life returns to its former home - the BBC - after an absence of three decades

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Andrew Lloyd Webber, composer and theatre impresario, was surprised by Michael Aspel ahead of curtain up on his musical Sunset Boulevard at London's Adelphi Theatre, having been led to believe he is there to attend to a problem with the high-tech apparatus.

Andrew met lyricist Tim Rice in 1965, while studying at the Royal College of Music, and they had their first success together with the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which opened in 1973 and ran in the West End for 9 months. Their collaboration led to two more hit musicals, Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita.

The success that Andrew achieved during the 1980s with such musicals as Cats, Starlight Express, Phantom of the Opera and Aspects of Love led to him being acclaimed as the most commercially successful composer in history.

This specially extended edition of This Is Your Life celebrated the return of the programme to the BBC.

"Have you got a ticket?"

programme details...

Edition No: 893
Subject No: second timer
Broadcast date: Wed 2 Nov 1994
Broadcast time: 7.30-8.15pm
Recorded: Tue 20 Sep 1994
Venue: unknown
Series: 35
Edition: 1
Code name: Sunset

on the guest list...

Madeleine Gurdon - wife
Alastair - son
William - son
Imogen - daughter
Nicholas - son
Elaine Paige
Laurie Holloway
Julian - brother
Zohra - sister-in-law
David Land
David Essex
Don Black
Gillian Lynne
Paul Nicholas
Arlene Phillips
Sarah Brightman
Connor Burrowes
Melvyn Bragg
Phillip Schofield
Trevor Nunn
David Mason
Michael Ball
Tim Rice
Glenn Close
Michael Crawford
Jose Carreras

production team...

Researcher: Mandy Nixon
Writer: Roy Bottomley
Director: Brian Klein
Associate Producer: John Graham
Executive Producer: Peter Estall
Producer: Malcolm Morris

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

Andrew Lloyd Webber

first tribute

Life is a Cabaret

a musical theatre chorus line

Life Second Time Around

surprised again!

Family Life

keeping it in the family

Extended Life

the special editions

Timeline

the show's fifty year history

Ratings slump sounds death knell for This Is Your Life

Press speculation on the future of This Is Your Life

Screenshots of Andrew Lloyd Webber This Is Your Life

Producer Malcolm Morris recalls this edition of This Is Your Life in his book, This Is My Life...

The rumours I had been hearing on and off for the past four years had turned out to be true and the BBC were indeed in secret talks with Thames about buying This Is Your Life. They wanted the programme they had rejected in 1964 as played out and finished. Now, 30 years later, having been thoroughly beaten in the ratings for 25 years on a Wednesday night, the BBC decided 'if you can't beat them, buy them', and that's what happened in 1994.

The deal was for Thames and its team to make the programme for the BBC. Once the initial excitement was over a whole lot of problems surfaced: should the programme be changed, should it be different?

Peter Estall was the executive producer for the BBC and his was the unenviable task of liaising between me and the team and his own departmental requirements. A bigger set, more expensive opening titles and new musical arrangements all helped give a wonderful, fresher look to the programme.

Yet some questions remained unanswered: Who are you going to do? How are you going to do it? And when?

We did, in fact, start with a spectacular programme complete with a 30-piece orchestra conducted by Michael Reed to provide the music for the life of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber. The surprise was sprung at the Adelphi Theatre during the opening of Andrew's Sunset Boulevard. Elaine Paige, Paul Nicholas, Glenn Close, David Essex and Michael Ball all sang live with the orchestra for Sir Andrew, but the big problem was whether to ask Sarah Brightman to be on the show. Her divorce from Sir Andrew wasn't that long ago but she wanted to be present. [Bigredbook.info editor: Glenn Close did not sing; her contribution was via a recorded message]

Sarah sang beautifully for him and they embraced at the end.

But the Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber Life had another drama attached to it that would have done any film script proud. Elaine Paige was delighted to be asked to appear as a guest of Sir Andrew because of the many shows they had made together which had, in turn, made Elaine the star she is today.

Two months before our invitation Elaine was working so hard that her voice gave out and she had the nightmare that all singers dread, trouble with her throat. Her vocal chords were strained and she was told not to sing for a few months to allow her throat to recover.

Elaine was convinced she could not sing to the quality that would be needed for an occasion that big, live for television with a 30-piece orchestra in front of everybody in show business. It was a formidable undertaking at any time but with doubtful vocal chords she was terrified. We agreed to have her on the show for just a message and a hug for Andrew. With two weeks to go it began to haunt her. She phoned John Graham (my associate producer and all round genius) and told him that she just had to sing.

'I'm not going to miss this magic event with everybody singing but me.' But her fear was still there.

I made sure that she understood that we were not putting any pressure on her to do this. It could go disastrously wrong and ruin her voice and her career. The night of the show arrived, we started the programme and when her turn came she ran onto her mark in front of the orchestra and the introduction started. Elaine stared ahead and quickly swallowed, drawing a breath. I found myself standing behind the main camera clenching my hands into tight fists. Then Elaine started to sing her famous number Memories from Cats.

She was a stunning success and when she finished she smiled with her tears and clasped Andrew to her. He thought she had never sounded better and on the strength of that night, decided that she should take over the lead role in his West End production of Sunset Boulevard. A wonderful and very dramatic evening which started the first of our new series of This Is Your Life for BBC Television, Wednesday 2 November 1994.

The Guardian 29 October 1994

PREVIEW

This Is Your Life 7.30pm BBC1

After a 30-year absence This Is Your Life returns to the BBC, looking for all the world like an ITV show. Thames TV are producing it, independent TV stalwart Michael Aspel hosts, and, except for some tweaking, even the old theme remains. Tabloid reports aside, the guests are a mystery, but you can bank on the good, great, and probably obscure reeling to a selection of embarrassing photos, archive clips, and dodgy satellite link-ups. Let the squirming commence...

Radio Times 29 October 1994

THIS WEEK

Thirty years after the BBC closed Eamonn Andrews' big red book, This Is Your Life begins a new chapter on BBC1 this Wednesday with Michael Aspel. The show, which began on BBC1 in 1955 and ran for nine years, was then taken up by Thames in 1969. It has never dipped out of the top 20 weekly viewing figures and its presenters – Andrews died in 1987 and Michael Aspel took over the following year – have surpassed even Jeremy Beadle in the variety of ingenious disguises and set-ups employed to net 'victims'.

While the tried and tested format of the show has not been changed in principle, the BBC series has a new set and theme music and will feature members of the public as well as sports and showbusiness stars.

Radio Times 29 October 1994

SHOWS: This Is Your Life 7.30pm BBC1

It started on BBC television in 1955, went to ITV in 1969, and this week returns to base with host Michael Aspel springing a new batch of surprises. The BBC announced in July that it was buying back this 'evergreen formula', still to be produced by Thames TV. Producer Malcolm Morris first worked on the show in 1956 – as a photographer for Radio Times.

The format remains the same, right down to the big red book and the theme music (which has been rearranged for the new series). Killjoy reports in the press have already named some of the victims, but ignorance, in the case of This Is Your Life, is bliss.

Series 35 subjects