With a string of global hits and a £1 billion fortune to his name, Andrew Lloyd Webber is a titan of musical theatre – one so wildly popular that for a few heady days in 1991, he achieved the unheard-of feat of having six separate West End shows on at the same time.
But though his success has earned him a fortune, “coolness” is one commodity he hasn’t always been able to buy. At the turn of the millennium, his star was definitely fading, thanks to changing tastes and his often-mocked appearances on reality telly talent shows. In 2004, The Evening Standard complained that his new offering, The Woman in White, was “so old-fashioned it deserves to be stuffed and displayed in a museum for deceased musicals”.
But suddenly, Lloyd Webber’s musicals are seeming less like unfashionable relics, and more like the hottest properties in town. New York’s recent Cats: The Jellicle Ball and Masquerade have turned his biggest hits of the ’80s into very 21st-century immersive raves. And last year, the most hyped director of the moment, Jamie Lloyd (no relation) sparked a hysterical rush for tickets after reviving Evita as a Rachel Ziegler-starring pop concert. Ambitious theatremakers are realising Lloyd Webber’s shows are bold, robust and familiar enough to withstand pretty much any wild concept that’s thrown at them (the infamously awful Cats movie excepted).
The turning point in this great artistic reappraisal? Timothy Sheader’s 2017 Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre production of Jesus Christ Superstar. It left shocked critics with no choice but to admit that this formerly overlooked early Lloyd Webber musical (which premiered on Broadway in 1971) both looked and sounded cool.
Tyrone Huntley was a standout as the story’s tormented anti-hero, Judas, who Tim Rice’s lyrics rebelliously depicted less as a Biblical villain, more as a reasoned critic of Jesus’s overblown popularity. Now, the production returns, this time to the London Palladium, with Huntley revisiting the role alongside Tiktok and Eurovision star Sam Ryder.
For Huntley, the Webbernaissance is all down to the composer’s ability to let go. “What I think he’s expertly done over the past 10 years is that he's been so generous in allowing modern takes on his material, and letting his shows move with the times,” he says. “He knows that in order to keep his work alive, there has to be new energy.”
In the case of Superstar, that’s meant rethinking the score. “The sound has this rawness to it,” he says, explaining why the show feels so different to the polished, lavishly produced works of Lloyd Webber’s heyday. “It uses the original 1970 concept album as a blueprint and really expands on that vibe.”
Similarly, where Lloyd Webber’s musicals once exploded onto the stage in maximalist fantasias of silk and fur, designer Tom Scutt recrafted them into something more chic and minimal. “The costumes have this hip hop, festival vibe”, says Huntley. “Each performer has a kind of uniqueness to them, but they’re brought together by this really cool-looking, layered aesthetic.”
Last summer, Huntley was part of a concert that took the great JC revival to new heights: for three nights, Cynthia Erivo (Wicked) starred as Jesus at LA’s vast, legendary Hollywood Bowl. And when he wasn’t playing the character of Simon the disciple in the show, Huntley was her understudy: “I stood in for her when she couldn’t make it, which was a lot,” he says, wryly, of this heavily booked-up star. “On stage, she was extraordinary. The show is called Jesus Christ Superstar so when you have an actual superstar in the role, it just makes everything more real and exciting. It’s all a comment on fame, and the way that celebrities are raised up on a pedestal. The moment they make a mistake, they’re dragged down to the depths.”
So what would Huntley say to people who still reckon Lloyd Webber’s musicals are dated? “I think they’ve been gravely misinformed,” he says. “If you hear and experience it in a live theatre, you can’t not be moved.” Then, warming to his theme, he concludes: “People put a label on musical theatre as being as a specific genre of sound. But actually, it can be anything. This is a rock opera. If you like rock, if you like gospel, if you like soul, you’ll like Andrew Lloyd Webber's music.”
Jesus Christ Superstar is currently showing at The London Palladium until September 5, 2026.
