Book Review: Victorians On Broadway – Sharon Aronofsky Weltman

VICTORIANS ON BROADWAY – Sharon Aronofsky Weltman (University of Virginia Press – ISBN: 978-0-8139-4432-6)

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

Broadway productions of musicals such as The King and I, Oliver!, Sweeney Todd and Jekyll and Hyde became huge theatrical hits. Remarkably, all were based on one-hundred-year-old British novels or memoirs. What could possibly explain their enormous success?

Victorians on Broadway is a wide-ranging interdisciplinary study of live stage musicals from the mid- to late 20th century adapted from British literature written between 1837 and 1886. Investigating musical dramatisations of works by Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Christina Rossetti, Robert Louis Stevenson and others, Sharon Aronofsky Weltman reveals what these musicals teach us about the Victorian books from which they derive and considers their enduring popularity and impact on our modern culture.

I actually got quite excited when this book arrived – I had no idea what it was going to be about until I read the blurb (above) and I thought it was going to prove an interesting read. Unfortunately, I am not an academic and, although I am very interested in the background to why someone thinks a certain piece of literature would make a good musical, I found the book to be too scholarly for my tastes and actually hard going to read through without my attention wandering.

Now, that may be just me but I honestly don’t think so. I truly think that all those with a deep scholarly investment in the world of musical theatre will devour this book but that for someone who simply knows that they either love or loathe certain musicals, no matter on what piece of literature they are based on, will find it, on the whole, quite a dry tome.

The book is available through Amazon, and other booksellers, and costs £68.50 for a hardback or £34.50 for paperback.

I’m sorry that I can’t get more excited about this book. I can see the work and research that has gone into it but it just isn’t something that you would find in any of my wish lists.

Nick Wakeham