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[0:00] Tim Rice: Hello, this is Tim Rice.

[0:01] Tim Rice: Welcome to episode 46 of my podcast, Get On to My Cloud.

[0:18] Tim Rice: In early 1973, after two years of the unexpected but truly remarkable success of Jesus Christ Superstar nearly everywhere on the globe, the nagging question of the follow-up became extremely pressing.

[0:33] Tim Rice: Andrew Lloyd Webber and I had been so busy chasing various productions of our hit show around the world that it was fairly easy not to think for too long about attempting to sustain our success, which in any event had been boosted by the even more unexpected commercial success of the work we'd written for schools before Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

[0:57] Tim Rice: This had been entirely as a result of a wonderful production by Frank Dunlop at the Edinburgh Festival, in which Joseph, for the first time, was performed somewhere other than a school before an audience of all generations.

[1:12] Tim Rice: But we were still considered one hit wonders, or maybe one and a half hit wonders, considered as such by ourselves as much as by the rest of the entertainment business.

[1:22] Tim Rice: So the next stage was vital if we were to hang on in the theatre world past 30.

[1:28] Tim Rice: We'd had one or two suggestions from producers, including new versions of Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland, but none really fired our enthusiasm.

[1:38] Tim Rice: Our next project had to be our own idea.

[1:42] Tim Rice: That idea was Jeeves.

[1:44] Tim Rice: We were both huge admirers of P.G. Wodehouse, and in particular of his immortal duo, the supremely intelligent manservant Jeeves, and his intellectually challenged hooray Henry Master, Bertie Wooster.

[2:00] Tim Rice: We became convinced that to musicalize these famous characters would be the perfect and unexpected follow-up to our two biblical shows.

[2:09] Tim Rice: It never crossed our minds that it would be bonkers not to progress with the accidental groundbreaking we'd achieved with Superstar.

[2:17] Tim Rice: We preferred to play it safe by reverting to a musical that could have been written in 1950, if not 1930.

[2:25] Tim Rice: Of course, we were not the first to come up with the idea for a Jeeves musical.

[2:30] Tim Rice: Wodehouse himself had had a go.

[2:32] Tim Rice: Indeed, one of the problems that affected the lengthy negotiations that our management team of David Land and Peter Brown, Peter was head of the Robert Stigwood Office in America, that David Land and Peter Brown had had with Wodehouse's agents to obtain the relevant rights, was that Wodehouse and his longtime collaborator Guy Bolton had written their own Jeeves musical, Leave It to Jeeves, many years before, with music by Robert Wright and George Forrest, lyrics by P.G. and book by Guy.

[3:04] Tim Rice: Consequently, we found ourselves dealing with Guy Bolton as well as with Wodehouse's advisors, and we were bombarded with advice and suggestions from the great dramatist, as David and Peter were simultaneously bombarded with legal work.

[3:19] Tim Rice: Guy Bolton was then nearly 90, and P.G. Wodehouse a couple of years older, but both were 100% on the ball.

[3:27] Tim Rice: They had written a number of hugely successful musicals in the early decades of the century, working with many of the greatest composers of all time, such as Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and even Franz Lehár.

[3:43] Tim Rice: We were extremely small fry in comparison, and I was acutely aware of the fact that even if Wodehouse had never written a single novel, he would still have been remembered as one of the foremost theatrical lyricists of his era.

[3:57] Tim Rice: Both Wodehouse and Bolton, British born, were American citizens.

[4:02] Tim Rice: But the deal was struck, and we began work on the new show in Italy.

[4:06] Tim Rice: Andrew's aunt, Vi Crosby, a former actress, had retired with her husband George, a doctor, to a villa in Ventimiglia on the Mediterranean coast close to the French border.

[4:20] Tim Rice: Their hospitality was outstanding, and the temptation to go sightseeing and sample local restaurants was not resisted.

[4:30] Tim Rice: We did not make great progress with Jeeves.

[4:33] Tim Rice: Our plan was to write a conventional book musical, i.e., with spoken dialogue scenes interspersed among the songs.

[4:41] Tim Rice: My first job was to draft a plot.

[4:44] Tim Rice: Basing my outline primarily on the story of The Code of the Woosters, with one or two scenes purloined from other Jeeves classics, I constructed a 22-scene synopsis, telling the tale of Bertie's antics with the Drones Club, terrifying aunts, disastrous engagements to unsuitable ladies, stolen cow creamers, and the vile neo-Nazi Roderick Spod.

[5:09] Tim Rice: Then we started at scene one to flesh it out with songs and speech.

[5:13] Tim Rice: I found myself trying to keep the spoken bits to a minimum, instinctively preferring to tell as much of the story as possible through song.

[5:21] Tim Rice: This inevitably slowed things down a bit, and after a fortnight or so, we'd only completed a scene and a half.

[5:27] Tim Rice: The first number featured Bertie Wooster on the banjo, singing about his mastery of the instrument and recalling an embarrassing incident when he was arrested for stealing a policeman's helmet on boat race night.

[5:41] Tim Rice: The song does not appear to have had a title, and the lyrics of mine that have survived were at best mundane.

[5:49] Tim Rice: Here's a sample, not a very long one, you'll be glad to hear.

[5:56] Tim Rice: It's all come about since I bought my banjo.

[6:00] Tim Rice: I was a Philistine.

[6:02] Tim Rice: But now I've checked my sad decline, they'll all line up to hear me soon, for I've nearly learned jingle bells, carousels, highlights, and half of Blue Moon.

[6:13] Tim Rice: It probably sounded better with the music, but not much.

[6:17] Tim Rice: Back in England, we repaired to Andrew's new country retreat, a delightful farmhouse near East Noile in Wiltshire, in order to stagger at least past scene two.

[6:27] Tim Rice: Progress was again fitful, and I decided to go away somewhere on my own in an attempt to speed up the faltering process.

[6:35] Tim Rice: Andrew had completed a bunch of tunes and I was definitely holding things up.

[6:40] Tim Rice: I went to stay in Exeter with my friends Harry and Lynn Guest.

[6:44] Tim Rice: Harry had been an outstandingly popular teacher at Lansing College during my time there, and was now, besides teaching in Devon, a much published and respected poet.

[6:55] Tim Rice: I felt that spending some time with a fellow writer might provide inspiration.

[7:01] Tim Rice: However, though the Guests left their guest to his own devices during the day, I continued to struggle with the as yet untitled musical.

[7:10] Tim Rice: I'd more or less completed two more lyrics, one to the outstanding tune that eventually became High Flying Adored in Evita.

[7:18] Tim Rice: As part of the Jeeves story, it was called If I Were Keats, and merely proved that I was definitely not.

[7:27] Tim Rice: Oh, if I were Keats or Tennyson or Rod McEwen, then I could begin to describe my thoughts to you, an easy thing for Keats, who knew his words and rhymes, and so on.

[7:40] Tim Rice: Verse two was no better, in which Bertie Wooster imagined himself as a great artist.

[7:46] Tim Rice: Oh, if I had the time, I'd paint for you around the clock.

[7:50] Tim Rice: Well, that's if I were Waterhouse, Michelangelo or Norman Rockwell.

[7:55] Tim Rice: I think it was better with High Flying Adored.

[7:58] Tim Rice: I also just about finished a lyric entitled Suddenly There's a Valet, a title that spoofed a big 1955 hit song entitled Suddenly There's a Valley.

[8:08] Tim Rice: But it was becoming increasingly clear to me that all I was doing was making the master P.G. Wodehouse unfunny.

[8:14] Tim Rice: Quite an achievement.

[8:19] Tim Rice: I drove back from Devon, knowing that I wanted to pull out of Jeeves.

[8:24] Tim Rice: This was not only because I knew I was writing badly, I was convinced I had a much more exciting idea for a new show.

[8:31] Tim Rice: Working on Jeeves for three or four months made me realize that rather than seeing whether we could build on our new and original approach to musical theatre, as per Jesus Christ Superstar, we were throwing all that away in favour of a totally conventional and rather old-fashioned approach to musicals, just when we should have been bold.

[8:52] Tim Rice: Nevertheless, I still thought Jeeves had a good chance of being a hit.

[8:57] Tim Rice: As to put it mildly, Andrew and P.G. Wodehouse were both outstanding creative artists.

[9:03] Tim Rice: But partly because I was not a natural musical theatre animal.

[9:15] Tim Rice: Not featuring my words, you'll be glad to hear, as I do not think any recording exists with my primitive attempts to set Wodehouse's genius to rhyme, thank goodness.

[9:24] Tim Rice: But here's a fine cover version of what is probably the show's strongest song, Half a Moment, lyric by Alan Aple, sung by Eric de Grey.

[9:24] ♪ Musical number: "Half a Moment" — performed by Eric de Grey ♪

[10:31] Tim Rice: I have a moment spent with you half a moment I shall treasure keep it locked away for some future days.

[11:01] ♪ Musical number: "Half a Moment" — performed by Tim Rice ♪

[12:53] Tim Rice: Before I could begin to think about how to tackle a musical about a deceased Argentinian dictator's wife, I had to get out of Jeeves. This was a nightmare prospect. There were so many people to tell, and presumably let down. In fact, everybody, Andrew, Guy Bolton, David Land, and P.G. Woodhouse himself, took the news extremely well. Worryingly well, come to think of it. Maybe they'd be glad to get rid of me. I thought perhaps that Andrew would also wish to abandon ship, and I mentioned my new idea, but this cut no ice. He said he would proceed with another lyricist. Fair enough. I broke the news to both Bolton and Wodehouse by letter. I'd met Guy Bolton several times in London and P.G. just once at his home in Remsenburg, Long Island.

Peter Brown took Andrew and me out to meet him one day, shortly after we decided to tackle Jeeves, and we spent a delightful afternoon in the company of the master and his wife, Ethel. This was undoubtedly the best moment of my entire involvement with the Jeeves saga. Plum, as we did not dare call him, happily posed for photographs with us. But of all the hundreds of rolls of film I was zapping off around the world at this time, this was the one I wrecked by opening my camera at the wrong moment. Mobile phones were still decades away. I never got the chance again for a picture with the man I consider not only to have been one of the greatest comic writers ever, but one of the greatest writers of any type ever.

My letter to him included the paragraph, I have come to the conclusion that almost any attempt on my part to transfer Jeeves from book to song would do Jeeves and Bertie no good at all. Naturally, they would survive; they are immortal, but I would hate any failure on my part to be responsible for linking your magnificent characters with adverse criticism. To my great relief, I received the most gracious reply, dated September the 27th, 1973. Dear Mr. Rice, I appreciated all the nice things you said about me in your letter, and I am, of course, sad at the thought that your Jeeves show has fallen through. But, as the fellow said, that's show business, and you were certainly wise to issue a nolle prosequi, as Jeeves would say, if you didn't feel comfortable about going on with a job which was certainly about as tough a one as they come.

I had a feeling that it was a bit dangerous doing Jeeves after your stupendous success with JCS. I don't know how the critics would have reacted, but there's nothing they like better than to jump on somebody, especially if young, who started off with a big winner. We'll show him, they say to themselves. Great pity, of course, but I'm sure you have been wise. I am halfway through a new Jeeves novel. It looks pretty good to me, but there's a block comedy scene coming along, and if that doesn't come out all right, I'm sunk, so I'm not cheering just yet. All the best. Yours, P.G. Woodhouse. Guy Bolton also responded most generously to my letter, writing from Buck's Club in Clifford Street, he was kind enough to close by saying, I greatly admire you both as craftsmen, and I feel it is sufficient reward for time I've given to the enterprise to be counted among your friends.

Phew. I was still dogged by a nagging panic that I'd just walked out of the biggest hit musical since, well, Superstar, and was almost tempted back in when Andrew recruited Alan Ayckbourn, no less, to write the book. I was asked to think again about writing just the lyrics, but after another look at my efforts to date, decided to stick to my guns. As Andrew and his new team continued bringing in highly distinguished sets of contributors, including David Hemmings as Bertie, I began to feel like the man who turned down the Beatles, but more often felt that my instincts were right. So they proved to be.

[17:30] Tim Rice: Disaster. It was certainly far too long when it first hit the stage, but there've been plenty of long-winded hits before and since. The music was certainly not to blame, for the score contains a very pretty, but inevitably, because of the subject matter, lightweight selection of tunes. The good news for me was not that the show flopped, but that Andrew was still keen to work with me. And we soon got going at breakneck speed with Evita. In 1996, Andrew and Alan reworked the show at Alan Ayckbourn Theatre. And this time around it worked much better, eventually enjoying a short run in the West End. The recordings are great fun, and the show continues to be performed. Here is a track from their 1996 By Jeeves original cast album.

This delightful melody first surfaced in the Dr. Bernardo musical that Andrew and I wrote in 1965, when the tune was called Love is Here. With new words by Alan Ayckbourn, with Stephen Pacey as Bertie and Malcolm Sinclair as Jeeves. This is Travel Hopefully.

[18:38] ♪ Musical number: "Travel Hopefully" — performed by Stephen Pacey and Malcolm Sinclair ♪

[21:44] Tim Rice: That was episode 46 of Get Onto My Cloud. Presented and written by me, Tim Rice, and produced by the one and only Peter Hobbes.