Using popular films as the source material for musicals may be the current vogue, but a good read has always been the first resort of the librettist and composer. Guys and Dolls was based on Damon Runyon's The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown; Cabaret was drawn from Christopher Isherwood's stories; Rodgers and Hammerstein happily amended Maria von Trapp's autobiography for their own ends to create The Sound of Music. And now, Austentatious – a musical set behind the scenes of a production of Pride and Prejudice – is heading to the Landor theatre, showing that producers will never tire of this tried-and-tested formula. But the journey from novel to musical is not always smooth.
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Seriously, who thought this was a good idea? On the face of it, Les Mis is a weighty French tale set amid revolution, littered with corpses, venereal disease and suicide – not what people think of as typical musical fodder. The critics panned it on its debut at the Barbican, mostly, it would seem, because of Boublil and Schönberg's heinous crime of using great literature in the frivolous musical art form – the Sunday Times critic called it "a highly charged, garrulous tale, psychologically shallow, full of florid but improbable gestures and studded with set pieces of insufferable sentimentality". After 23 years and a couple of house moves, it's still running.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
With passion, death and the potential for a dramatic Gothic backdrop, Brontë's masterpiece offers much for the musical adapter. In the UK, there have been two shows based on the novel, neither of which has met with great success, possibly due to the personnel rather than the content. Cliff Richard's 1996 vehicle Heathcliff was much mocked for its fast and loose treatment of the story and, of course, because the Peter Pan of pop would hardly be anyone's first choice to play the brooding, murderous, gypsy-like boy. Bernard J Taylor's offering was much closer to the book, but began its life with a concept album with some surreal casting: Lesley Garrett as Cathy, Dave Willetts as Heathcliff, and Bonnie Langford as Isabella .
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
If you take a slice of bleak Victorian social realism, remove the depressing bits and the incisive commentary, totally change the ending and throw in some big song and dance numbers, what have you got? Why, it's everyone's favourite festive season extravaganza! Adorable urchins! Rascally old rogues! Singing prostitutes! It would be interesting to conduct a survey on how many of those queuing to see Jodie Prenger as Nancy know that, in the text, Dodger was transported to Australia, Fagin encouraged Sikes to murder Nancy, Sikes accidentally hanged himself and Fagin was sentenced to death.
Carrie by Stephen King
The producers of this 1988 Broadway show must have hoped their $8m layout would guarantee moderate success. After a four-week tryout in the UK, the gorefest crossed the Atlantic having rectified technical problems – such as Linzi Hateley, in the titular role, suffering a microphone malfunction every time she was drenched in blood, and veteran Barbara Cook resigning after almost being decapitated by falling scenery. There were also daily script rewrites, but evidently not enough – after 15 previews, laden with continuing technical, libretto and musical difficulties, it closed five performances into its run.
Over to you: which novels would you like to see turned into musicals?
