One of my leaving prezzies was a real curiosity. My friend John-John gave me a copy of the soundtrack of a Jerry Herman musical that none of us had heard of before (unusual for a theatrical queen, I know)! On further investigation, it became clear why...
The musical in question, Miss Spectacular, was never staged. Jerry had been coaxed out of semi-retirement to write the score for a lavish Las Vegas production at the Mirage Hotel. The manager was even prepared to build a whole theatre to accommodate it, and musical thesp Tommy Tune was to be its director. Sounds perfect - but then disaster struck when in 2000 the Mirage chain was bought out by MGM-Grand, who (for some bizarre reason) shelved the whole project.
So the first musical by one of the greatest musical theatre composers for more than a decade was confined to being produced as a "concept album", albeit with a great cast including Michael Feinstein, Steve Lawrence and Christine Baranski.
It is a crying shame, as the show sounds (as always) fabulous, and could make a fantastic production if someone, somewhere, would only stage it. Cameron Mackintosh, are you listening?
[This clip opens with "I Wanna Live Each Night" from Miss Spectacular]:
Read more about the demise of Miss Spectacular
