Avail Yourself Unmasked Articulated By Andrew Lloyd Webber Released As Hardbound

well done, just a little bit too longpages in LARGE PRINT! He told everything youd ever want to know about his life and his music, Ive seen Cats, Evita and Superstar my favorite by far, . How can you not love a musical that has King Herod challenging Jesus to “walk across my swimming pool, ”

I accidentally put this on hold at the library when I was looking for Unmasked by Paul Holes, decided Id check it out anyway, Glad I did. This book was due back to the library before I had time to finish it, No great loss it was only mildly interesting, There was a lot of detailed background information that I really didn't care about,

Most autobiographies are entirely self serving and relatively dull, Who really wants to air any legitimate dirty laundry or mull over failures While detractors of ALW will have lots to pick over here, it is inimitably his own voice certainly not ghost written and it is at times surprisingly revealing.
He does gloss a little over personal failings although admitting them, and at certain times crossing lines into "men talk" about those times, but it is definitely mind opening if you are looking at the musical theatre scene in thes ands.
The book ends with Phantom's premiere but it does cover those initial years in detail including the inspirations and changes to scores in detail as well, Essential if a fan, important if a fan of a few of those musicals, though certainly not going to convert detractors, This guy has written some of my most favorite musicals, I could watch Phantom and Joseph over and over, Living in a rural area we mostly get our musicals with summer civic theater, Time and again while reading this book I wondered if he talked the way he wrote and by that I mean going on and on and on, Atpages, he only makes it through aroundand states there is a possibility there could be a Book, I haven't seen all of his work so the long stories about his work I haven't seen mostly got skimmed, He wrote the book in his speaking voice quite often I was left guessing

what the English vernacular meant, I would recommend this if you are a diehard Andrew Lloyd Webber fan, otherwise skip it, There are a lot of interesting tidbits that I learned from reading Lloyd Webbers book, You understand somewhat the chronology of the music and the productions he has been involved in, I say “somewhat” because the author seems to have always been working on multiple projects at the same time, and each project had its own life, sometimes changing along the way think “Evita”, with multiple production timelines around the world, movie considerations, prototype album, and changes in music as time goes on.
The changes in a production over time were one of those things I never much thought of, but there are a lot of things going on, Lloyd Webber comes across as quite detail oriented when it came to his music, and I found it interesting to read what he found important in creating his work.
I also found this book interesting in documenting the author as a young man, starting with many privileges based on his family and at times focusing on art, at times focusing on business, and at times focusing on his lovelife and his family life.
He comes across as being even handed, telling good and bad in these areas of his life, At times, though, this feels forced, like the story is being changed, With many autobiographies that Ive read, and I have read a large number of them, I feel I get a good opinion of the author, and can understand the subject and feel that he is familiar.
I dont feel that way after reading this, Lloyd Webber feels quite foreign, I cant determine if it is the English upbringing he describes, his lucrative artistic career isnt that an oxymoron, or his wives with the same name that felt exotic to me probably everything.
Mix in a healthy dollop of Thomas the Tank Engine and historic church architecture and you get this book, Note that it even ends strangely, On audio, Lloyd Webber himself introduces the book but lets a professional narrator read the text, Lloyd Webber comes back right at the end and warns the listener that hes realized that hes got more to tell, so hell continue in another, asyetunwritten book, It's kind of like going to a one hour talk about some fellows vacation and having him tell you afterhours that hes only half way done, Overall, I feel I learned something, and was mildly entertained, but it wasnt what I was expecting, I picked this up because the reviews I read suggested that it was better than one might expect it to be and that's exactly how I found it, This is the first volume of Andrew Lloyd Webber's memoirs, which covers the early part of his career up to the opening night of Phantom of the Opera.


It would be interesting in any case to have some insight into the creative process of a man who has had musical successes writing everything from Elvis Presley songs to stage musicals to a requiem mass.
But perhaps surprisingly this book is also very funny, packed with amusing anecdotes,

There are bits that are a little cringeworthy female professionals always get 'ess' versions of their titles there's a bit where he makes a joke about the large size of his penis there's more than a little bit of scoresettling but he strikes the right note far more often than the wrong one.
It's an interesting book this, furiously wordy and weighty and rather deliciously careless in tone, One thing is clear, Andrew Lloyd Webber has learnt to care very little about what other people think and his book is full of a sort of selfdeprecating, somewhat fey humour that is undoubtedly appealing.
He comes across well, I think, despite a few deliberately blithe moments which skim over the top of complex personal situations and creative tensions,

It could, however, do with some fierce editing, There's too much here to comfortably grasp or take away from the book, unless you're possessed of some in depth theatrical knowledge and have the ability to remember who is who when they're mentioned several hundred pages later.
I lost track quite a few times of the finer detail, In a way, I think had much more time for the reflective tone of the earlier chapters concerning his childhood and creative naissance, as opposed to the frantic, though undoubtedly fascinating, detail of the final third of the book.
Interesting memoir, but as he says numerous times, . . due to his wordiness, he could not include everything he wished to include, Lots of background information regarding his various productions, personal stories and more, There were parts of this that were interesting, but I was annoyed when I got to the end and discovered it's basically Part One of his autobiography, To my knowledge, he hasn't yet gotten around to writing the rest of his story, mmm I mean there are some good anecdotes in here, I think ALW could have written like a couple of good BuzzFeed posts, It's very rambly though and I don't think ALW has a good sense of what a dirtbag he's making himself come across as, esp w/r/t his child bride.
And also his pervasive sense of himself as an underdog, rather than like, . . one of the most commercially successful composers of all time Who had success from a very young age

more on the podcat, but in short, only recommended for diehard fans :

sitelink frowl. org/worstbestsellers Very interesting if youre a musical nerd, I cant say I love ALW as a person after reading all his unexamined privilege he says his family had no money growing up, but he lived in South Kensington and spent holidays in the French Riviera.
. . or his treatment of the women in his life, But I did like his willingness to engage in some dishy gossip, This is the autobiography of Andrew Lloyd Webber, This wasn't quitebecause it was entirely too long with all of the little details that could have been left out, I rounded up though because I liked his humor and I am amazed at his track record in the music field, It was a little bit luck, a little bit love of music, and a little bit of being where he needed to be when he needed to be there.
I loved how things seemed to fall into place for him, but ultimately, he made it happen, I was entirely impressed, so I can forgive the length and excessive wordiness and round up, While I was interested in reading this, I wasn't interested enough to make it through thepages, I don't know where to start, I adored it. The only thing I have an issue with is that it ended with Phantom, . . especially after Sir Lloyd Webber alluded to some interesting things happening around the making and premiering of Sunset Boulevard, . . I need the inside scoop!!!

I loved the tone this memoir was written in, I mean, it was so British, . . such a playful style of British humour and choice of words, . . which I just looooooooove. But at the same time, he is just so well read and wellspoken!
The writing was so engaging, I think Lloyd Webber is just a master of structure, not only in his music / musicals, but in writing as well, At first, his writing might seem a little bit "hopping around"y but even then it is done in a charming and organic way, so it's not annoying, . . but then you realize that he is just hinting things that would become more importantchapters later, . . just like variations of a song in a musical that would foreshadow a scene, Just awesome.

I really enjoyed reading about the process of his shows being made, I am educated in theatre, and I am semiwell informed about West End and Broadway, but I learnt a lot of things! I loved how it showed that success does not come without hardships and hard work, even if you have proven beforehand.

With that being said, some people who are just mildly interested in him and not huge theatre geeks like me might find some of the descriptions of scenes of performances or how / based on what logic songs are following each other in his musicals a bit boring.
. . not me, though, I love reading about theatre productions in detail!

I also liked how genuine and sincere he was without putting this "I am going to tell it all soooo hard"facade on.
Really enjoyed reading about the history and backstory of some of my favorite musicals, Anyone whos a “theater buff” this is a must read!!! Enjoyed it very much, cant wait for the next book, continuation of book, Audio book is highly recommended for this one, Exceedingly verbose and dull. This book is overpages long, yet it still only covers less thanyears of Lloyd Webber's life and ends with the London opening of Phantom of the Opera.
On the one hand, this memoir does track the creation of his biggest hits at the height of his career, so many readers will be satisfied, But we don't get to see SO MUCH of his life, including the more interesting parts, Throughout this book, Lloyd Webber is on top, He skirts over what few failures there were between Joseph, . . and Phantom, such as the dissolution of his first marriage, but the actual juicy stuff that happened in his life all happened after, I want to read about the neverending drama of Sunset Boulevard, especially the Patti LuPone fight, What about the string of flops that followed Phantom The disastrous first staging of Whistle Down the Wind The casting process of the Evita film in the mids The Phantom film His divorce from Sarah Brightman I want to read about his freaking kitten deleting the ENTIRE SCORE to Love Never Dies and how someone even recovers from that.
Actually, I'd read a whole second memoir just about Love Never Dies, How did he come to write his first musical success in decades from such unlikely source material as School of Rock

All of this is more interesting than what Lloyd Webber actually writes about: going to bars, looking at architecture, spending time with his aunt, and flying on the Concorde all the time.
The chapters on Superstar, Evita, and Cats are fun, but the rest is really boring and even sometimes confusing, Like I'm still not sure when or how Joseph, . . went from aminute musical to a fulllength production, And I read probablyor so pages about it,

There's also a sortof uncomfortable vibe of straight male privilege running throughout, Lloyd Webber writes of lunches at men'sonly clubs, He writes matteroffactly and flippantly about his affairs, without any kind of emotional connection or remorse, while he was married to his first wife whom he also calls "Sarah" at one point, as if she's not even a person.
. . which is kind of fair, considering her presence seems to only be for an accurate representation of his life, not to add anything to the narrative or his life, besides kids.
He also tells stories of the men around him one of whom was Tim Rice placing bets on who could have sex with the most actors who played Mary Magdalene at the height of Jesus Christ Superstar's popularity.
He brags about his penis size, And he seems obsessed with pointing out the effeminate nature of any gay or gay presenting man he meets, using words like "camp" and "fey" to describe them, It's weird.

So all in all, I can't say I recommend this, . . but I also know that if another volume comes out covering the years from Phantom's Broadway opening to now, I'll read it, .