Works of Stephen Sondheim Puns

Yaaaas Gawd, That’s Good

Have a Back Roll, Mr. Goldstone

The Ladyboys Who Lunch

The Blob (Jiggly Caliente)

A Weekend with My Hunty

Spilling the Chrysanthemum Tea

Another Gay Anthem

June and Her Huntys

Every Day a Little Death Drop

Legendary Children and Art

Ah, Miss Thing

Merrily We Back-Roll Along

I Read (For Filth)

Send in Bianca del Rio

This was behind a paywall, so I registered to read it and have copied it here because I don’t support The Times and hope they crumble into dust!

He was up at dawn, proverbially anyway, to jot down his thoughts for cast and director after watching the first preview of Marianne Elliott’s new West End production of Company. Yet later that morning Stephen Sondheim appears for our interview dressed as if for a society wedding. “Tell your children,” he says. “You’re one of the few people on the planet to have seen me in a suit and tie.”

It transpires, however, that the outfit isn’t just to impress The Times. Immediately the interview ends, Sondheim heads off to get what is surely the ultimate accolade for a born and bred New Yorker whose darkest musical is about the demon barber of Fleet Street. He has received the Freedom of the City of London.

“Yes,” he says, “I will now be able to drive my sheep over London Bridge without having to pay a toll.” That would have made a wonderful scene in Sweeney Todd, I say. “Even more pertinent in that context,” he replies, “is that if they hang me, I’m now entitled to a silk rope.”

The one thing you quickly discover when meeting Sondheim is that, even at 88, he’s still the sharpest wit in the room — no matter who else is present. And like most other giants of Broadway, he doesn’t suffer fools gladly, especially when assessing new productions of his shows.

So naturally I’m curious to know what he wrote in those notes to the cast of Company. After all, this new staging has taken the most tremendous liberty with his 1970 show. The original focuses on a 35-year-old man, Bobby, who — although adored by five married couples and adorned by three girlfriends — won’t commit to marriage. For London in the post-Me Too era, however, Bobby has been turned into a woman called Bobbie (to be played by Rosalie Craig), the girlfriends left dangling on a string have become boyfriends, and one of the married couples is now gay.

Yes, but what did he really think about the gender switch? “I wasn’t convinced that it was a good idea at first,” he admits, “but she persuaded me that the plight of women in their mid-thirties today is not dissimilar, in their fear of commitment, to what men felt in 1970. So I went along with her. And guess what? She’s right. The show is thrilling and the cast is terrific.”

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There are, I point out, quite a few Sondheim devotees who are convinced that Bobby never married because, all along, he

For me, it's Oh What A Circus from Evita

It would be amazing if this was accesible.