It's a strange world that you find in musicals. One minute you think you are watching a serious, personal drama and the next everyone starts singing. I've never seen this happen in the real world. Maybe I am just waiting for someone in the street to have the right marriage proposal, or the right genius business idea. When it happens, stereo music will appear from nowhere and everyone will start singing and dancing to it. I can't dance at all so maybe it's a good thing that it always happens somewhere else.

I'm not an expert on the history of musicals. Here are just a few, in no particular order, that have interested me over the years.

I don't recommend that anyone below FCE level should try reading a Charles Dickens novel. If you have read one, you will understand why. It is worth the effort though, when your English is good enough. Before then, you might like to see 'Oliver!', a musical based on 'Oliver Twist'. Dickens created a deep, moving, and very, very long story. The musical is a good way to get children interested in it, but it does so by putting the original into a kitchen blender. There is more left out than included.

I have heard more musicals than I have seen, thanks to soundtrack albums. As a result I have a personal list of 'musicals I have never seen but would like to see'.

In second place on that list is 'Titanic', from 1997. Yes, that's the same year that the film by James Cameron came out so maybe that's why it's not so famous. The idea is just as controversial as the film: Should someone make a form of entertainment about an event which killed one and a half thousand people? Well, if it is done tastefully I can't see a problem with it. The first half is full of optimism and excitement. The second manages to have some sense of hope. Most importantly, nobody says "I'm flying!" at any point in the script.

The number one on that list of mine is 'Chess'. Yes, you did read that correctly. Someone made a musical about 'the simplest and most complicated pleasure yet devised'. I'm sure they did not have any problems persuading sponsors as the writers had such good CV's. The lyrics were written by Tim Rice ('Jesus Christ Superstar') and the music was composed by Benny Anderson and Bjorn Ulvaeus (the two songwriters from ABBA). In case you were wondering, the musical is more about chess players than the game itself. It was written during the Cold War so it contains an exciting east-west rivalry. Although the musical disappeared from theatres while I was still at school, it keeps changing into something else. Last time I looked, it was touring Denmark as a concert (so without the giant chess board and the dancing rooks I guess).

I can't describe all these without also including one rarity. I belong to a small group of only a few hundred people in the world who have seen "Money To Burn". I enjoyed it. The critics hated it. It died after two weeks.

Glossary

a crisis kryzys

a proposal oświadczyny

effort wysiłek

a kitchen blender mikser

a script scenariusz

to persuade przekonać

rivalry rywalizacja

a rarity rzadkość

Find the names of seven people who work in theatre in the word square.

The words might be horizontal, vertical or diagonal.

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