Royal Academy of Music – The Last Twenty Five Years!

The Last Twenty Five Years! was performed by the Royal Academy of Music’s Musical Theatre Company.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The Royal Academy of Music’s The Last Twenty Five Years! concert was a highly anticipated evening for me. I had had some doubts about the homogeneity of this year’s musical selections, but they were quickly dispelled.

After having paid tribute for the past three years to giants of the second generation of the Golden Age of Broadway (namely Kander and Ebb, Jerry Herman and Cy Coleman), Matt Ryan decided to explore the musical theatre legacy of this new century – so far! – quoting the title of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years to cover what’s been going on more recently on Broadway.

Starting off with the title song of arguably the last great musical of the 20th century, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens’ Ragtime (1998), and ironically closing it with the same show’s ‘Back to Before’, the concert made clear to us the fact that the era of humming the songs on the way out of the theatre is dead and gone.

True, new Broadway has many other things to offer than hummable tunes, namely more serious subject matter, contemporary choreography and diverse types of music without the urge to have a stand-alone song become a popular hit – but we do miss the power of the simple ballad or showtune.

As performed by the uber-talented Royal Academy of Music students, Act I gave us a taste of the foremost composers of this century, such as Jason Robert Brown (Songs for a New World, Bridges of Madison County), David Yazbek (The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, The Band’s Visit), Michael John Lachiusa (The Wild Party), Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home) and Adam Guettel (the grandson of the great Richard Rodgers who created The Light in the Piazza, Floyd Collins) – finishing with the more commercial Hairspray by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman.

Act II stretched even more into pop, with excerpts from High Fidelity, American Idiot, Murder Ballad, Spring Awakening, Passing Strange and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, followed by a Tom Kitt segment with of course Next to Normal. The focus then moved on to ‘And You Don’t Even Know It’ from Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, ‘Sex is in the Heel’ and more from Kinky Boots, ‘Omigod You Guys’ from Legally Blonde and the title song from Six.

A Here Lies Love segment featured the whole company and the next section catered to Brits with a Jerry Springer section featuring the popular ‘I Just Wanna Dance’. The very last segment, ‘Gen Z’, contained ‘Just Breathe’ from The Prom and ‘Waving Through a Window’ from Dear Evan Hansen, and was thus more melodic, a quality DEH songwriters Pasek and Paul possessed from the start.

All in all, The Last Twenty Five Years! was very interesting and educational if one wasn’t familiar with everything, thanks to Ryan’s clever juxtapositions of so much unrelated material and Dannielle ‘Rhimes’ Lecointe’s always inventive choreography.

The sets and costumes by Rachel Ryan, lighting by Charlie Morgan Jones and sound by Mike Walker were, as always, of West End caliber, and the clever arrangements by Ben Kubiak, Sofia Helmi and Gabriele Margolis helped bring some unity to such a musical melting pot, contrasting with the previous events devoted to a single composer.

The talent on stage was amazing as usual, and it’s always exciting to see the stars of tomorrow showcased by the talented and imaginative Ryan. We can’t wait to discover what he might have in store next year for us!

Patrick Honoré