Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I love nothing more than talking to myself (with Tim Rice)

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Fi is still sadly off with illness so Jane is flying solo! She gets through your emails and covers afternoon tea, twins and flooding.Plus, Jane speaks to lyricist Sir Tim Rice about his career, his relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber and his new BBC maestro course.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Kate Lee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Right, well, welcome to Off Air.

We just want to note a little bit of a female triumph here because Eve has mended the studio. And without her genius, you wouldn't be hearing any of this. Take a bow, Eve. You can speak. Thank you. That's enough from her. Right. This is Jane.

No, she's done very well. Seriously. This is Jane because she is just a bit unwell. She wasn't great last week, as you're probably aware, and she still hasn't quite recovered. So obviously, I love nothing more than talking to myself, but this will be necessarily brief, but there's always going to be time for some of your fantastic emails. Can't thank you enough, actually.

Had a lovely half hour or so ploughing through the emails when I got into work today, so please do keep them coming. Jane and Fi at times.radio. The guest in this edition of Off Air is the wonderful lyricist Sir Tim Rice. If you're a fan of the musical, you'll want to hear what he says. He also names his favourite song by him and then the song he would like performed, his kind of Last Supper song. So have a little think to yourself,

wonder what those two song choices might be. But Sir Tim Rice coming up a little bit later. On Friday, here at Times Towers, Fee and I, Fee was sort of just about, well, she wasn't looking, she was a bit ashen-faced, but she did come into the building on Friday to take part in a really lovely Times Plus subscriber event, an afternoon tea as the sun set over the whole of London,

because we got the tea together and we took it up. I mean, personally, we took it up to the 17th floor, which has this incredible view of London. And there was a little bit of a Q&A with the wonderful Jane Mulkerrins and finger sandwiches, macaroons, not my favourite, but beautiful scones and mince pies a go-go. And it was lovely to meet so many off-air

and Times Radio listeners. And thank you very much to those people who came along. A couple of topics came out of that event, actually, with people coming up afterwards and just saying, why don't you talk about this, this and this? I'll get on to one of them in a moment. But there was a woman who was very passionate about allergies to broad beans.

Apparently, this is not uncommon. We were talking a lot about broad beans on the podcast last week. People are very allergic to broad beans. It's no laughing matter. So we will talk about that. Plus, somebody else wanted us to talk about what it's like to be the child of an identical twin. And I hadn't really thought about this before, although one of my best friends is in fact the child of an identical twin. I asked her about it at the weekend she says it hadn't worried her and it wasn't really a big thing in her life but it might be for you if it was or if you are an identical twin tell us what it's like when you either have a child or what it was like for you when you were a child jane and fee at times dot radio we've had a lovely thank you email about Friday from Jill,

who says, I just wanted to say a big thank you to everybody concerned. It was such an enjoyable afternoon and a great reason, not excuse, to sally forth from deepest Dorset and hit the pavements of London town. What an amazing tea the times conjured up. It's not normally a meal I eat, but the temptation laid out before us was simply too great to resist. The glasses of fizz didn't go amiss either. I hope you both also had an opportunity to enjoy some of the goodies to which we were all treated.

Well, the good news is I was served a private afternoon tea before the event started, and I made my way through a wonderful selection of finger sandwiches. I think my favourite for what they were worth, what my view is worth rather, it was the coronation chicken. They really worked. Jill goes on to say, I enjoyed the interview that the other Jane Malkerians did with you and I wanted to say how brilliant it was that Fee did manage to rise from her bed of sickness and gallantly turn up for the event.

I was also laid low with a bug midweek and was wondering whether or not she or I would be fit enough to be there on Friday and sympathising with her predicament. It was also very thoughtful of you not to linger at the end of proceedings, that's me, and risk passing on any random lingering germs. As somebody with a severely immunocompromised grandchild,

I really appreciate it when people hang back if they suspect they might be infectious. Jill, that's lovely. Thank you so much for telling us that you enjoyed it. You had a good time. I think it went quite well, so I think there might be another one of those coming along. I enjoyed it, and I'm really glad that you did too.

Twins, definitely on my mind, because this email has come in from a listener. We're not going to mention her name, but she gave birth to twins a month ago. My first baby, she says, and your podcast is keeping me company during the long, long nights. And with twins, I'm assuming, listener, that those nights are twice as long as they are with one newborn. listener that those nights are twice as long as they are with one newborn. She did listen to the interview we did about twins with the author William Viney, who'd written a book about them. But she does confess that obviously in her situation, she's a bit behind with the podcast, which I understand. But she does go on to say that she found pregnancy rough, struggled with

changes to her body, particularly because I'm normally quite an active person, so I found it difficult. I was also huge and uncomfortable. I also could not believe the unhelpful things that people said to me during my pregnancy, from things like, wow, you're huge, to gosh, twins will be exhausting, you'll never sleep. I have vowed to never comment on a pregnant woman's size or mention sleep to her at all. We don't have twins in the family so frankly they were a shock. My husband and I are quite young, we didn't use IVF so we were pretty unlikely to conceive twins. I was so excited and ready for the babies to arrive and was so relieved when they did at 37 weeks and were decent weights and healthy not a given as I was repeatedly warned. However the last few weeks have been hard. I love my babies but I'm finding the relentless nature of caring for two tiny humans overwhelming plus needing to recover physically from the birth.

I miss my old life, my freedom and my body. There are moments when I just feel completely overcome with love for them and I know that in time things will get easier and I'll be able to enjoy being a mum more but right now it's hard. My husband is back at work and I don't have any family locally so the days are long juggling nappy changes and feeding and trying to leave the house. I do think she says paternity leave should be longer for everyone, but especially for dads of multiples. Do you know, I just feel intense sympathy for you

and I'm certainly more than happy to acknowledge that I only ever had single babies and I found it bloody difficult. Those first couple of months are properly hard and I wish, like our correspondent correspondent we were just more honest about that do not be hard on yourself for finding everything a struggle I'd be more concerned if you weren't finding it a struggle to be absolutely honest and it's brilliant that you are able to express that in the email to us so I'll pass that one on to Fi because I know she will wholeheartedly agree with me there just cut yourself some slack I bet you're doing an amazing job

or even just a good enough job which is as a parent it's just the best you can I think there is an important book written about this but being a good enough parent so I bet you are more than that in fact and thank you for telling us about it and keep in touch

and keep listening to the podcast I just also want to mention although we will return to this, the listener who came to talk to me on Friday at the tea party, it's Sue, who recently went through the truly diabolical experience of being flooded out of her house. It was just horrendous. Five weeks ago, she wrote in Storm Babette,

our beautiful market town in Suffolk was flooded. We had something like two months of heavy rain in 48 hours. And whilst the weather warnings were all focused on East Scotland, our area didn't actually get weather warnings. Our beautiful home, dating back 400 years, suddenly had what can only be described as a river flowing through it. And Sue has added a whole list of useful bits of advice for other people to know when a friend of theirs or a relative is flooded. So it's definitely

something we'll return to. But I just think it's worth saying that if you are someone in that position, you need to help with immediate accommodation if you possibly can. Sue's flood happened on a Friday and she couldn't get hold of insurers until the Monday. You should provide food. Sue says they had great offers from lovely friends to eat at theirs, but we were utterly exhausted with trying to salvage stuff. Again, food related, she says, offer to drop off a picnic bag of food

together with water bottles, hand gel, wipes, etc. to their home when they know they're there trying to salvage things or clear up the whole business is quite overwhelming physically and emotionally and the last thing you have time for is thinking of food if you can offer to take a bag of their washing do it dry it and Temporary accommodation often doesn't have means of drying clothes and we escape, says Sue, with only a small amount of clothing. If possible and things are not contaminated, offer to help those precious things that might be saved

or help remove wet things out of the house so the long drying process can start. Often this has to wait for insurers to see it but the offers of help are so much appreciated. God, I mean, Sue, I really, really, I know I talked to you briefly on Friday, but that just sounds such a hideous experience. I'm so glad you're through it and things are a little better for you. And I do think that advice is useful but if you don't mind I think we will return to that subject

and maybe get the experiences of other people too so if you've been through that do let us know Jane and Fi at times.radio and Sue says it honestly was a lovely afternoon on Friday it was a test of normality for me and we thoroughly enjoyed it well that is something Sue thank you for coming, because it probably wasn't easy for you to arrange that. I want a quick shout out to Joan, who I met on Friday,

who'd come from Northamptonshire. And she was a bit nervous about coming. But I think in the end, Joan, you were glad you had. And it was really lovely to meet you. And I'm really, really chuffed that you came along. Let's get on to Sir Tim Rice then, surely one of the nation's best-known songwriters, the man responsible for writing the lyrics to Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Joseph and his amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. And he's the winner of loads of awards, three Oscars, five Grammys. And if you'd like a career like Sir Tim Rice,

well, the good news is he is now taking part in BBC Maestro. These are online courses offering ordinary people, yes, you and me, the chance to learn from the very best. Well, BBC Maestro is a, what's the word for it really, a sort of system, a construct, which enables people who are allegedly experts in their field to talk about how to do what we've done and just add to the industry of human happiness, I suppose. I don't know. I mean, in my particular case, it's musical theatre. It's not just culture. There are people talking about everything from gardening to looking after your dog um to mechanical things looking after cars and it's as i said alleged experts talking about how they got or how they've achieved what they have achieved

and if you're interested in in one particular subject maybe our experiences can help you go along that path. But in my particular case, so much of my path has been sheer luck and good fortune. I sometimes wonder if I'm capable of giving any advice, but I think you can always offer insights into the business in an interesting way, which is what I've tried to do. Can you tell us when you first went to a musical or heard a song that stuck with you? Wow, I suppose when I first heard a song that stuck with me, I was about four. But I first went to a musical that I can remember,

apart from Pantos, would have been Salad Days, Julian Slade's great British musical, which that would have been about 19, I guess, 1956, or maybe even a bit earlier than that. The first big American musical I ever saw was My Fair Lady in about 19, again, I'm guessing the dates, probably I went 1959, 1960, when it was on in London. And I was not really a great musical aficionado

other than through my parents' LP collection because I didn't live in London and we didn't go up to London very often. But I did get to know musical theatre through gramophone records, which was a very good way of learning the key thing to any musical, which is, of course, the score.

Although I then discovered later on in life that the even more key thing to any musical, which is, of course, the score. Although I then discovered later on in life that the even more key thing to a musical was the story. And if you haven't got a good story, even the greatest songs usually can't save it. You've got to have a good story, something that will grab the attention. Better to have a great tale to tell with average music than to have wonderful music and a rotten story. OK, that's really interesting. Can you point me to an example of a show with a fantastic selection of songs but a not particularly involving story? story? Well, there have been musicals mounted on, for example, Sgt Pepper, which is one of the great albums of all time with wonderful music. And The Beatles, I don't think had anything to do with the

theatrical productions. But there have been versions of that which flopped because there wasn't really an intelligent story based around those songs, which although there was on the album, there was a sort of thematic and musical link because it was all performed by the same four brilliant people but there was a film of sergeant pepper which was an attempt to get a story around it and then it just didn't work because there isn't a proper tale um one would have you know done better in that particular case to have put them into a story that had absolutely nothing to do with the concept of Sergeant Pepper. But that was never it. I mean, it was it was impossible task. Nobody ever achieved anything on that one.

When you reference luck, when was your first really big piece of luck? And I appreciate many people will say, well, he's being unnecessarily modest here, but let's go with it. You say you've been lucky. When did you first get lucky? Well, I suppose the first stroke of luck, the biggest stroke of luck was meeting Andrew Lloyd Webber. I was beginning to make tiny, tiny inroads into the music business, but on the pop and rock side. And I was introduced to Andrew through a book publisher of all things and when I met Andrew he was absolutely determined and obsessed if you like in the nice way with making it in musical theatre he knew what he wanted to do I didn't really know I was sort of dabbling

in a dilettante way with pop music and i eventually got a job at emi records behind the scenes but andrew was from well from even i mean i met andrew when he was 17 and i would say probably from the age of eight he was pretty determined to make it as a composer and probably as a theater composer which which of course he eventually achieved. And when I met him, he'd already written about five musicals at school. And he was clearly very gifted. He played me a few tunes from some of these shows and then he found out or asked if I could write words. And I think that's where my parents' album collection came in handy

because I had listened to a lot of really good musicals all the way through and knew most of the songs by heart, although I'd never seen any of the shows apart from My Fair Lady. And I also had a background in rock music in terms of just enthusiasm. Andrew did as well to a great extent, but musicals was his number one. I was more into Elvis and the Everly Brothers and Chuck Berry

and then Cliff and the Shadows. This is all three Beatles. And so the combination, I think, of my lack of knowledge and his great knowledge worked well. 17, though. He really was. He was a child prodigy, wasn't he? He was just 17.

You know what I mean. Yeah. He was was he was brilliant um yeah i mean he and he knew what he wanted to do that was the great thing he had he had that absolute determination i interviewed michael ball recently um who was who was great value very entertaining and in his memoir he talks obviously about Andrew Lloyd Webber. And what comes across is that Andrew is an incredibly mercurial man, not always the easiest to deal with. What would you say about working with him? Well, I would agree with Michael. Certainly mercurial. But when we worked together, we had three big hits

which worked really well and sometimes I think it's a pity we didn't have any more but you can't be greedy and I think to a certain extent our paths in musical taste slightly diverged but you know we're still

close you know we've done the old thing together since Evita, which was the last of our big three. So, you know, he wanted to do different things, like Cats, which didn't need a lyricist, and I went off in a different direction, and in a way, that was good for me too, because I would never have done my stuff with Elton or Bjorn and Benny if we'd stuck together. But you don't seem there to have ruled out sitting down and working with them again on something at some point.

No, I haven't. You never know. But it would have to be something that we were both keen on. it would have to be something that we were both keen on. And, you know, but I don't wake up every morning thinking, I've got to write another show. He probably still does. I like to keep my hand in, and there's always stuff to do on the old stuff. Some of it's successful, some of it not.

I mean, there's a Joseph film in the works, which will probably need a couple of new songs, which will be great to go back to that with Andrew and add add two two new songs in the Joseph style whatever that was well yes I wanted to mention Joseph because like many people of um well my generation and many other generations I have of course performed in Joseph um yes, yes, with the old towel on the head and the, I mean, the classic primary school, primary school performance. How many of those have you sat through yourself, Sir Tim? Well, a lot. And in a funny way, I enjoy Joseph most of all, in some respects, when I see it done by a school, because it was written for a school. And the first school

performance was very exciting. We never dreamt it would lead anywhere and at that time we hadn't got anything else in the works we all we had we'd written a musical which which hadn't got anywhere and we were just coming to terms with that so this was a this was a great opportunity to at least hear something we'd done live but of course it went down really well. And gradually, the success of Joseph from one school got us a record, and he got us some nice reviews, and he got us a manager. And it led to everything. I mean, Joseph was a stroke of luck, because we were asked to do it by a schoolmaster, we would never have said, let's write a show for schools. But one schoolmaster said, please, is there anything you can do for our end of term concert? And that turned

out to be Joseph. And presumably, it's still being performed in schools all over the world today. Yes, it is. It's been done all over the world. We've seen, I've seen production certainly in lots of other countries besides Britain. And I'm always keen, if I can, to go to a school show. I mean, there's probably one on nearly every night somewhere in the UK or somewhere in the world. And it's terrific because it does introduce a lot of young people to musical theatre, or indeed perhaps just to music.

There are plenty of other shows that do that, of course. I went only last week to see Oliver, Lionel Bart's great musical, which influenced us beyond doubt. And that was done by a class of about 100 kids with one or two soloists. And it was great. And I just thought, you know, we should do something like this. And then I thought, oh, hang on, we have done something like this. I think a show like Oliver, which can appeal to adults and children,

and Joseph does the same, that's great because you don't talk down to the kids. When Lionel Bart wrote Oliver, I'm sure he wasn't thinking particularly of children, even though there's lots of children in the show. And when we wrote Joseph, we were writing for children initially. But I was quite happy and keen to use long words and funny phrases that they might not know because if they don't know them they'll find out about it through the show I mean words like fratricide or phrases like beyond the pale things like that I didn't I mean I probably chose that one because it rhymed but um well you are you are

um you're a big fan of the rhyming couplet and you make no secret of it do you? Well I think you have to be if you write in theatre I mean my great friend and I Don Black have often talked about this we we love a lot you know we we love a lot of contemporary music but there's a different there are different rules for contemporary pop songs often compared with theatre in theatre I think you have to be more precise and I I cringe slightly when I hear, in our early work, I hope not too much in the later stuff, I hear a rhyme that's not quite perfect. I think, hmm, yeah, that annoys me. But then I'm probably super fussy.

Most people wouldn't even notice. I mean, one of the best couplets in Joseph is actually not a perfect rhyme. His astounding clothing took the biscuit, quite the smoothest person in the district. Very funny, he said immodestly. But it's not quite a perfect rhyme, but nobody noticed. And I think sometimes you can get away with a rhyme that's a bit of a sort of send up of the rhyming art, and district and biscuit does that.

Are there any rhyming couplets of that nature in Jesus Christ Superstar? There are one or two bad rhymes in Jesus Christ Superstar. You know, just time and trying to think now, but why should I plug them? But there are one or two slightly dodgy rhymes in Superstar, but very minor and certainly not in a song like I Don't Know How To Love Him. Heaven on their minds, I always worried, which is a good song. You know, all your followers are blind,

too much heaven on their minds. That still annoys me, but I made one or two feeble attempts to change it. And whenever I have tried to change things from the past and said, well, actually, people always say, no, no, no, you can't change that. And they're right in a way, if something works, I'm probably too much of a pedant these days about rhyming. But certainly if I do something new, I would, that would be one of my great concerns. Contacts. Calendar.

Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. You've joined us just halfway through a lovely interview, if I say so myself, with the lyricist Tim Rice. And I actually do think that his best song is I Don't Know How To Love Him. But a lot of people think he must really love Don't Cry For Me, Argentina.

So I asked him, Sir Tim, is that your greatest work? Well, I think it's a good song. I think it works within the show very well. One or two people have had a go over the years saying, well, it's a load of cliches, but that's exactly what it's meant to be. It was written not as a pop song, but written as a insincere, but slightly insincere speech given by a politician to a crowd. But it's out of context, it seems to have been phenomenally popular.

So that's a strange one, because we never dreamt it would be a big pop hit covered by lots of people. I wouldn't say, I mean, I like it a lot and it's a terrific melody. I wouldn't say it's my favourite song lyrically, but I've got no complaints about it and I'm very grateful for its success. What is the difference, and I think I know this but I want to hear it from you, the difference between a song and a song from a show? Well, as I've just said with Argentina, in a way the song from a show has to serve the show first

rather than be an out-of-context hit. We thought that Another Suitcase in Another Hall, which has been a hit, was the only song that would work in Evita out of context. And again, if I go to The Lion King, I never dreamt that Hakuna Matata would become such a popular song. It was a sort of throwaway thing that worked for a couple of characters in the film.

throwaway thing that worked for a couple of characters in the film um so you know you know in some respects there shouldn't be a difference because so many great songs have emerged from shows but i can certainly say that i would never have written any of the songs that we've been lucky enough with um if they hadn't been in a show but just wouldn't i mean i wouldn't have sat down and written a song what i don't know how to love him because i'm not a lady but um i i had to write a song a good a good song for a woman in a certain situation and sometimes i think because there are so many pop songs these days which are often very good but they're all me me me and it's all my problems and you know he's a rotter you know this out the other i'm talking about on the whole female songs um which are very popular and obviously resonate with with with the younger

generation but sometimes you can an outsider looking in can observe somebody's feelings and reactions better than they can um so i think songs like I Know Him So Well or I Don't Know How To Love Him seem to work for women, even though they're written by an old codger like me. That's interesting, isn't it? If you can stand aside sometimes, if you stand aside from somebody, how often do you think well I can see you know you talk about maybe your family or a close friend I can see what your problem is you can't that that's not to say that most of the songs that are hits today are written by people who

from their own personal experience but you don't have to have experienced something to to understand it. Who are today's best lyricists, do you think? Well, in the theatre, the British ones, I would say, Don Black, without hesitation. I don't know enough about some of the younger ones, but in the rock field, I still admire enormously, again, being British, people like Pete Townsend and Mick Jagger who write highly intelligent lyrics and still do

they perhaps you know it seems strange that guys of that generation can still do it but they can and obviously I'm slightly biased because they are my generation but I mean there are a lot of younger people

who write good stuff and occasionally I think hang on that's very clever. Really my problem is I don't go to the theatre enough so I haven't seen, especially with the recent COVID and everything I really wouldn't like to pronounce on who's good, but there are some good people around, there's no doubt about it. Actually, you know, the people who weren't sick did jolly well. Yeah.

That was a great idea. That was the thing that got that going. It was a brilliant story, even though it's told in a very, well, perhaps because, especially because it's told in a unique way and it's short keep it short can i just bother you with one more question i just want to know your your musical songs last supper let's say that the two or three songs you would always always pay to hear sung brilliantly well what are my songs? Anybody's songs. Oh, wow, that's a tricky one.

The doorbell has rung just in time to save me from this question. I don't know. I think in musical theatre, oh, golly it's very difficult I probably would revert rather feebly to someone like Paul Simon

The Boxer is one of my all time favourite songs I always like I don't know why this has cropped up in my head right now I thought Sting's Fields of Gold was brilliant I loved Leonard Cohen's

Alleluia. There are hundreds more, which, you know, from all the great acts, I mean, an awful lot of the stuff the Stones have done lyrically for my money is, for me, as important as the actual music. It's difficult. It really is difficult. And what is your favourite of your songs? Ah, probably something so obscure nobody would have heard of it, but I always rather liked High Flying Adored in Evita. I like Anthem in Chess. I think that's a pretty good one. There are one or two others I'm quite fond of. With Elton, I always felt that a song we wrote,

well, Circle of Life, actually, I was thinking of something from Aida, but Circle of Life is not bad. That was Sir Tim Rice. If you were listening to the live radio show, we were able to play, of course, some of those wonderful songs, but we can't do that on a podcast for reasons just too technical and tedious to go into.

But honestly, it is interesting. I thought it was interesting that his favourite song of his is High Flying Adored, which you wouldn't necessarily reach for first of all. But he's worked with everybody, hasn't he, Sir Tim? And people who are snooty about Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber,

they need to have a word with themselves because they've just given millions of people so much pleasure. And I don't know, I mean, we must be due for maybe a revival of Evita. I don't know. Has it been on in the West End of London or elsewhere? Is it touring the country at the moment? It's a great role for somebody, isn't it? And the songs in it are amazing. I love Another Suitcase and Another Hall as well. Some really, really good songs in that show. So Tim Rice then was a very, very

lovely guest. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Tomorrow on the programme and indeed on the podcast, we're talking about memory, because there's a very interesting memoir of an extraordinary childhood that I've read by a man called Shane McRae. And he remembers certain things about his childhood, which was extraordinary, and which you'll hear about in the interview, but not everything. And he doesn't really understand why he remembers certain things. And so we're going to talk to him and also to a memory expert who can explain perhaps in a bit more detail why some people remember a lot, others don't remember very much, and why some of us remember very specific days,

quite anodyne events, and what that might all mean. So that's tomorrow on Times Radio and on the podcast. Have a very good night, and fingers crossed, V will be back then. You did it. Elite listener status for you for getting through another half hour or so of our whimsical ramblings. Otherwise known as the hugely successful podcast

Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. We missed the modesty class. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler, the podcast executive producer. It's a man, it's Henry Tribe. Yeah, he's an executive. Now, if you want even more, and let's face it, who wouldn't, then stick Times Radio on at three o'clock,

Monday until Thursday, every week, and you can hear our take on the big news stories of the day, as well as a genuinely interesting mix of brilliant and entertaining guests on all sorts of subjects. Thank you for bearing with us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. I'm breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11 and get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone.