Whistle Down the Wind | Tickets | Broadway | Broadway.com Whistle Down the Wind Browse more shows you may also be interested in. Duration A musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on the novel by Mary Hayley Bell (mother of Hayley Mills, who starred in the movie). The setting has been moved from England ... Story Read More A musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on the novel by Mary Hayley Bell (mother of Hayley Mills, who starred in the movie). The setting has been moved from England to rural Louisiana in 1959. Kids discover a man in their barn. He's ill and before he passes out, they ask his name: Jesus Christ, he says, and they believe him and so determine to hide him. In fact, he is a murderer. A mob gathers to find the man. Swallow wants him to be the Christ in the hope he can bring her dead mother back to life. Whistle Down the Wind | Story | Broadway.com Whistle Down the Wind Browse more shows you may also be interested in. Duration Overview Story Story A musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber based on the novel by Mary Hayley Bell (mother of Hayley Mills, who starred in the movie).

The setting has been moved from England to rural Louisiana in 1959. Kids discover a man in their barn. He's ill and before he passes out, they ask his name: Jesus Christ, he says, and they believe him and so determine to hide him. In fact, he is a murderer. A mob gathers to find the man. Swallow wants him to be the Christ in the hope he can bring her dead mother back to life. Whistle Down The Wind Musical London theatre stage show Whistle Down The Wind Previewed 15 March 2006, Opened 27 March 2006, Closed 12 August 2006 at the Palace Theatre London The return, for a strictly short season, of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman's musical Whistle Down the Wind to London in a brand new production directed by Bill Kenwright. In America's Deep South a 15 year old girl discovers a mysterious man hiding out in a barn. When she asks his identity the first words he utters are 'Jesus Christ'; it's as if all her prayers have been answered.

The girl and the town's other children vow to protect the stranger from the world that waits outside; meanwhile the townspeople are determined to catch a fugitive. Whistle Down The Wind's powerful all new staging combines epic storytelling with intimate emotion as the innocence of children collides with the cynicism of the adult world. Based on the much loved film, Whistle Down the Wind is an extraordinary and uplifting tale about the transforming power of love and was originally seen in London's West End at The Aldwych Theatre in 1998 when it played for 2½ years. This stage musical version featured the No.1 hit: No Matter What; plus Whistle Down The Wind; The Vaults of Heaven; Try Not To Be Afraid; Cold; and many more. Please note: age suitability - eight plus. "Under Bill Kenwright's impressively simple, uncluttered direction, this revival succeeds in being a quietly exciting and moving story of mistaken identity and the power of purity over wickedness. Lloyd Webber relocated the original story (made famous by the 1961 film starring Alan Bates and Hayley Mills) from its chilly setting in northern England to the God-fearing community of farming folk in Fifties Louisiana.

It gave him, the grand master of pastiche, a golden opportunity to experiment with sounds from gospel, hymns, jazz, blues and the dawn of rock'n'roll... Kenwright's production gets the best out of less-than-vintage Lloyd Webber." The Mail on Sunday "If you were once, like most people, an eager, dreamy child, or a restless adolescent who loved secrets and liked to fantasise, don't miss this Andrew Lloyd Webber musical... Bill Kenwright's production of Whistle Down The Wind blends the absurd, the childlike, the lyrical and the menacing... Paul Farnsworth's sets are brilliantly evocative, and there are moments when the blend of lyricism and violence reminds you of West Side Story... Sad, joyful and finally uplifting: an irresistible show." The Sunday Times "There are those whose heart's cockles are warmed by the sound of many children singing at the same time and there are those who want to leave the room - or in my case the Palace Theatre where Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical abomination Whistle Down the Wind has been revived. This is a nauseating and creepy adaptation of Mary Hayley Bell's cockle-warming, sinister 1958 novel.

Dogged professionalism aside, only the shiny, happy face of my companion, my own child, kept me in my seat... The performances are all good and conscientious, and the songs, even the ones sung by many children at the same time, are forgivable. Turning this classic story of a childhood fantasy into one of teenage angst, however, is not." The Sunday Telegraph Whistle Down The Wind in London at the Palace Theatre previewed from 15 March 2006, opened on 27 March 2006 and closed on 12 August 2006. Whistle Down The Wind at the Aldwych Theatre London 1998 Previewed 22 June 1998, Opened 1 July 1998, Closed 6 January 2001 at the Aldwych Theatre London Andrew Lloyd's new musical Whistle Down The Wind in London featuring lyrics by Jim Steinman. Based on the original novel by Mary Hayley Bell and the film produced by Richard Attenborough and directed by Bryan Forbes from a screenplay by Keith Water house and Willis Hall.

Adapted for the stage by Patricia Knop and Gale Edwards and directed by Gale Edwards with designs by Peter J. Davison. The original cast featured Lottie Mayor as 'Swallow' and Marcus Lovett as 'the Man'. This is the West End premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical which was seen in February 1997 at the National Theatre in Washington DC where it played for 9 weeks. The musical has now been revised for it's West End opening and includes some new songs. "The original was a memorable low-key, low-budget picture in black and white set in the North of England and starring Alan Bates and Hayley Mills. The West End version is a forgettable, brash, big budget musical in all the colours of the rainbow, set in a small town in Louisiana starring two unknowns... Simplicity has been sacrificed for the spectacular, with everything thrown in from an express train and a roaring motorcycle, to live snakes and real flames in the fiery finale. The best moments come from the wide-eyed youngsters with numbers such as Long Overdue For A Miracle and When Children Rule The World.

The rest is too melodramatic for words." The Daily Mirror "Whistle Down the Wind arrives at the Aldwych much transformed from the Mary Hayley Bell novel and Bryan Forbes movie on which it is based. Lloyd Webber rightly argues that Bible-belt Louisiana is a more convincing setting than rural Britain for a Christmas-time story that turns on the touching faith of children in a second coming that will heal their damaged lives... While Swallow loves Jesus, the man (or beast) in him is inevitably erotically attracted to her. But nobody connected with the show, not Lloyd Webber, nor his lyricist Jim Steinman, nor Edwards, dares push this conflict far enough to make it dramatically interesting. It may be that this is just too dangerous for a commercial musical, but it stops the show from being grown-up...Lloyd Webber has ducked a genuine confrontation between two kinds of love, two kinds of desire, and, as with his music, has given us something that has the appearance, but not the substance, of the real thing. Like the fugitive, he disappears without trace. Swallow and the children take some comfort from this, treating the absence of their Jesus as confirmation that one day he will reappear.

Fans of Andrew Lloyd Webber may find it a convenient parable: that so long as we keep faith, one day the genius will become manifest. It remains an unanswered prayer." The Sunday Times "The story is well known from the Bryan Forbes film: a bunch of kids in Louisiana in 1959 take an escaped convict to be Jesus Christ. Lloyd Webber - working here with Jim Steinman, and Patricia Knop and Gale Edwards - alternates between (a) kids and (b) adults, (a) misplaced hope and (b) jaded cynicism, (a) positive and (b) negative energy... Lloyd Webber is a craftsman. Throughout the show you can feel him trying every technique he knows to make a number theatrically effective. The result, though not particularly effective, is less unpleasantly manipulative than in other shows of his... The central idea of his conception here becomes apparent in Act Two: to show how (a) and (b) are related, how the bright optimism of the kids can overlap musically and rhythmically with the punitive aggression of the adults. Both (a) and (b) are, in fact, the opposite sides of the same coin: which is moral energy...

Gale Edwards directs. Thanks to her, there is one somewhat interesting scene near the end, in which the heroine Swallow and the convict she insists is Jesus face each other at close quarters. The mixture of confused sexual attraction and idealistic hesitation on both sides is well handled and sustained by Lottie Mayor and Marcus Lovett" The Financial Times "Despite being reworked for London, Whistle Down the Wind proves a more obstinate beast - a dramatic dinosaur oddly out of time and out of tune with the theatre of today. Lloyd Webber has transposed Mary Hayley Bell's novel from its chilly original setting in the north of England to a God-fearing community of simple farming folk in Fifties Louisiana... Yet despite the change of location, we're still in Lloyd Webber-land. Here, amazingly, the Baptist minister and his wife boogie alongside the slappers and drunks in the local bar, and otherwise bigoted, red-necked Southerners overlook the racial apartheid laws. This is even less plausible than the main story, which depends on a huge leap of faith and a major case of mistaken identity: Jesus Christ Superstar meets Martin Guerre ...

The real problem, though, is a plot so predictable that the show's creators frantically attempt to find dramatic interest elsewhere. The songs should do it, but the score is a lost opportunity, with lots of very Seventies-sounding rock, too little blues or gospel and no showstopper on the scale of ' Memory '... Dramatically, the second half is stronger as the hunters close in on the convict. But the only genuine moment of drama, in a generally underwhelming show, is the duet between Swallow and 'Jesus', when Swallow discovers that her devotion has an erotic edge, and 'Jesus' wrestles with his inner demons again and releases her with a chaste kiss. In Lloyd Webber-land, good always triumphs over evil. Where the show succeeds is in its special effects. Trouble is, you can't whistle the scenery." The Mail on Sunday Whistle Down The Wind in London at the Aldwych Theatre previewed from 22 June 1998, opened on 1 July 1998 and closed on 6 January 2001. © thisistheatre.com 2004 - 2016. All rights reserved.

| E&EO | Privacy Policy | Updated 29 April 2015 Whistle Down The Wind (Andrew Lloyd Webber) :: Rodgers & Hammerstein :: Show Details Like this page on facebook. Whistle Down The Wind (Andrew Lloyd Webber) Lyrics by Jim Steinman | Music by Andrew Lloyd Webber | Book by Patricia Knop, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Gale Edwards Based on the novel by Mary Hayley Bell and subsequent Richard Attenborough-produced film, Whistle Down the Wind follows the fortunes of a fugitive caught between the prejudice of adults and the innocence of the young. Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman, together with Patricia Knop and Gale Edwards (co-book writers with Andrew Lloyd Webber) reset the original story in Louisiana in 1959. Whistle Down the Wind revolves around the time and place where the word teenager was invented. Swallow, a 15 year-old-girl growing up in America’s deep South in the fifties, discovers a mysterious man hiding out in a barn. When she asks who he is and the first words he utters are “Jesus Christ”, it’s as if all her prayers have been answered.

Swallow and the town’s other children vow to protect the stranger from the world that waits outside – the townspeople who are determined to catch a fugitive hiding it their midst. As fantasy and reality collide, Swallow is torn between the two and begins to discover who she is and where she is going. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s emotive score combines hauntingly beautiful love songs and explosive rock music with lyrics by acclaimed rock’n'roll songwriter Jim Steinman. The score contrasts the relentless influence of the modern world with the traditional values of the old days – something which the community at the heart of Whistle Down the Wind yearns to return to. After successfully playing at the Aldwych Theatre in London for over two years, Whistle Down the Wind undertook two UK tours as well as touring the USA from 2007-2008. Participate in the R&H Online Community.Leave comments or talk with other fans in the forum! About The Show To request the rights to make merchandise for this show email brian.sherman@rnh.com .

Fan Info: RSS In 1948 Andrew Lloyd Webber was born, composer of hit musicals CATS, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR, EVITA, JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT, BY JEEVES, ASPECTS OF LOVE, WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND, and SUNSET BOULEVARD. In 1998 WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND had its London premiere at the Aldwych Theatre. The musical is a collaboration between Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman, known for his work with musician Meatloaf, and took its inspiration from the 1961 film. The show ran for 1,044 performances. "Lloyd Webber’s best show since Phantom" — Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph "Sensationally Good Performances; I relished every minute" — Lynda-Lee Potter, Daily Mail "Strikingly Dramatic Stuff…Brilliantly Theatrical" — What’s On in London "Lloyd Webber’s terrific new musical. A Superb Uplifting Evening" — Michael Coveney, Daily Mail "Blessed with an outstanding score.

Completely Brilliant" — Martin Collins, Capital Radio "I was captivated by Whistle Down the Wind. The best musical production I have seen on stage. Simply superb... Go and see it." — Sunderland Evening Chronicle "Technically a miracle...vocally, the performers sound like Angels." — Yorkshire Post, Bradford "A show with immense heart." — The Mail on Sunday, Glasgow "A clutch of melodies crying out to be hummed all the way home." — Keighley News, Bradford "This high-quality production works like a charm and looks a treat. The big barn set is spectacular and the cast of principals and children are outstanding." — Aberdeen Press and Journal "Hugely entertaining with a gripping tear jerker of a finale that had the first night audience on their feet, cheering." — Wolverhampton Adnews "This rock musical spectacular kicked up an almighty storm thanks to catchy songs, strong performances and compelling story." — Southampton Daily Echo "It works triumphantly!" — Evening Herald, Plymouth "Strong emotional scenes.

Intense, satisfying, gripping drama." — Edinburgh Theatre Guide Song # Rural Louisiana Written By: Professor Adam Fairclough, University of East Anglia Soaring on stilts above swamps and bayous, the four-lane interstate highway – a product of the federal road-building programme started by Eisenhower in the 1950s – will get you to the state capital in little over an hour. It bypasses the towns and there is not much to see, although the dead armadillos and the Spanish moss that clothes the cypress trees reminds you that this is indeed Louisiana. Airline Highway takes a little longer. Built by Huey Long, the flamboyant governor and virtual dictator of Louisiana who was assassinated in 1935 (tourists can inspect the bullet holes in the marble walls of the capitol building where he was gunned down), it passes through a few small towns. In one of them, LaPlace, you can stop at a restaurant whose shiny chrome facade identifies it as a classic diner, one of the first in America. Take the old River Road, however, to flavour Louisiana’s history at its richest.

Hugging the left bank of the Mississippi, which is hidden from view by towering levees, River Road twists and turns past oil refineries, sugar plantations, wooden shacks, and ante-bellum mansions. The columned mansions bear names like Belle Helene and Oak Alley, and remind us that slavery once made this narrow, fertile strip of land one of the most lucrative in America. Before the Civil War, southerners boasted that “cotton is king”. In semi-tropical southern Louisiana, however, sugar reigned supreme. In the 1950s, sprawling petro-chemical plants were springing up along the river, yet the cane fields still supplied America’s sweet tooth. Most of the surviving mansions are derelict, or, like England’s stately homes, have been turned into tourist attractions. But the ageless shotgun houses that line River Road – one floor high and one room wide, you can fire a shotgun into the front door and the pellets will pass out of the back door – are still occupied by the descendants of slaves.

That French settlers first colonised this flat, swampy land is obvious from the names of the towns – Lafayette, Napoleoville, Thibodeaux, Baton Rouge, Pointe-a-la-Hache. But other immigrant groups also settled here, as indicated by towns named Des Allemands, New Iberia, Welsh, and, less obviously, Yclosky (inhabited by shrimp-fishing Canary Islanders). In New Orleans, the influx of Irish, German and Italian immigrants has produced an accent that is more like Brooklyn, New York, than Atlanta, Georgia. Louisiana is the only part of the South that is strongly Catholic. The counties are called parishes and have names like Assumption, Ascension, St. Helena, St. Charles, St. James, St. John, St. Bernard, St. Mary, St. Landry, St. Tammany and St. Martin. The white-washed churches, the secluded convents, and the oven-like tombs remind one of France or Spain. On St. Joseph’s Day, the cemeteries are cleaned and tidied and adorned with flowers. On Shrove Tuesday – Mardi Gras Fat Tuesday – schools close down for the festivities.

Louisiana is also part of America’s Protestant heartland, the famous Bible Belt that stretches from Virginia to Oklahoma. The northern half of the state is a stronghold of Baptists and Methodists. More obscure religious sects and cults, from voodoo to snake-handling, abound among the poorer blacks and whites. Baton Rouge is home to Jimmy Swaggart, one of America’s slickest and most popular TV evangelists. During August each year, the Baptist churches still hold emotion-packed revivals to convert sinners and test the stamina – for they go on for at least a week – of the faithful. Driving west from Baton Rouge one enters Acadiana, Cajun country, populated by the French-speaking descendants of people who fled British rule in Canada two hundred years ago. In the 1950s, Cajun culture seemed to be dying. Derided by outsiders as coonasses – uncouth, illiterate swamp-dwellers – Cajun parents decided that French was a liability and insisted that their children speak English. Yet south Louisiana’s oil boom was already transforming and energising this isolated backwater, bringing jobs, money, roads and tourists. A French-speaking politician called Edwin Edwards personified the Cajun revival.

Elected to the city council of Crowley in 1955, Edwards not only became the first Cajun governor in the state’s history, but also the most successful politician of his generation, serving as governor for 16 years between 1972 and 1996. A debonair man of striking good looks, with well-attested weaknesses for gambling and pretty women, Edwards was the kind of loveable rogue that Louisiana voters not only tolerate but admire. Twice prosecuted for corruption, and twice acquitted, Edwards quipped he would never be convicted by a Louisiana jury – unless he were caught in bed “with a live boy or a dead girl”. Louisiana is world-famous for its laid-back, “laissez les bons temps roulez”, way of life. Tourists flock to New Orleans in their millions to attend Jazz Fest, pace up and down Bourbon Street gawping at the strip-joints, revel in the inebriated madness of Carnival, and waltz and two-step to Cajun (white) and Zydeco (black) bands. Millions who have never set foot in Louisiana know about it second-hand, for the state’s music and cuisine are among America’s biggest cultural exports.

Legions of fans listen to Dr. John, the Neville Brothers, and Wynton Marsalis, who regularly perform in European concert halls. Virtually every city in Britain boasts a Cajun or New Orleans restaurant that serves up imitation gumbo, jambalaya and crawfish etouffe. Dave Lee Burke’s crime novels, set in New Iberia and featuring a Cajun cop named Dave Robicheaux, can be bought in airports everywhere. Films like Oliver Stone’s JFK popularise an image of New Orleans as an exotic city of Byzantine intrigue and decadent sex. In 1959, however, Louisiana was in the throes of a racial crisis that threatened to destroy its reputation for tolerance and gaiety. Alarmed by the Supreme Court’s decision Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which ruled that the South’s segregated schools were illegal, rabble-rousing politicians warned Louisiana’s whites that their southern way of life was being undermined by the growing Civil Rights Movement.

In Louisiana, as in the rest of the South, black people were finally rebelling against a system of white supremacy that denied them the vote, forced them to sit in the back of the bus, and relegated them to schools that were separate and inferior. But although they had the Constitution and the Supreme Court on their side – as well as the force of right – blacks had no political power. They were terribly vulnerable. In 1956 the die-hard racists formed a movement called the Citizens’ Council – an innocuous name that belied its vicious intent – and set out to annihilate the Civil Rights Movement. The ultra-racists could only slow down, not reverse, America’s progress toward racial equality. Yet in postponing the inevitable they wreaked havoc. Employing blackmail, intimidation, economic pressure and political coercion, the Citizens’ Councils brought Louisiana to the brink of anarchy and bloodshed. In 1959 they destroyed Governor Earl Long – Huey Long’s younger brother – who suffered a mental breakdown as he bravely defended the right of black people to vote.

In 1960 they engineered one of the most shameful episodes in the history of Louisiana, when obscenity-spewing mobs tried to stop four young black girls from attending white schools in New Orleans. And in the early 1960s, they encouraged the most extreme haters and psychopaths to burn, beat and murder in the name of the Ku Klux Klan. For race relations, the years between 1956 and 1964 were grim ones indeed. Teenagers growing up in Louisiana during the 1950s could be forgiven for feeling rootless and confused. A traditional society based on family, farm and church, was being eroded by industrialisation and the growth of cities. Highways, radios and televisions were connecting isolated communities with the outside world. Yet the modern society of postwar America, with all its promise of material abundance, provided little in the way of emotional satisfaction and spiritual security. The Cold War produced anti-Communist hysteria and national anxiety. Schoolchildren were given classes in Americanism that inculcated conservatism and conformity: a national civil defence programme trained them to duck and take cover in the event of a nuclear attack.

At home, white children heard their parents talk fearfully and incessantly about the threat of racial integration – how black people wanted to intermarry with, and mongrelise, the white race. Movies of the time occasionally captured the frustration and latent rebelliousness of America’s youth. Rebel Without a Cause made James Dean – killed in a car crash after completing the film – a potent symbol of alienated youth. The Wild One depicted Marlon Brando as the surly, black-jacketed leader of a violent motorcycle gang that terrorises a tranquil, conservative town. “What are you rebelling against?” a puzzled town elder asks him. “What have you got?” replies Brando. Rock-and-roll, the most important musical event of the 1950s, spoke directly to the boredom, alienation and frustrated sexuality of America’s teenagers. Too young for the laid-back, world-weary crooning of a middle-aged Frank Sinatra, too sophisticated for the inane warblings of squeaky-clean Doris Day and Pat Boone, the generation that came of age in the 1950s greeted rock-and-roll with a roar of spontaneous enthusiasm.

Adults were horrified by the raw sexuality of the leering, hip-grinding Elvis Presley – and by the hysterical way that their teenage daughters responded to him. Whites in the South had an extra reason for alarm: the fact that Presley and the other rock-and-rollers were frankly imitating black rhythm and blues intensified the sexual anxiety that was never far from the surface when white people thought about blacks. Not even talk of Communist plots, however, could put the rock-and-roll genie back in the bottle. It was too exciting, too sexy and too good. Besides, rock-and-roll was an indigenous southern product – Presley was from Tupelo, Mississippi; Jerry Lee Lewis from Ferriday, Louisiana. Broadcast from a Shreveport radio station, Louisiana Hayride brought the music of Presley, Lewis and other rock-and-rollers into homes all over the state. Rock-and-roll resembled a religious revival that swept across the South. Indeed, although preachers denounced the new music as the devil’s work, rock-and-roll and religion were like two sides of the same coin. Jimmy Swaggart and Jerry Lee Lewis were, after all, cousins.

Whistle Down the Wind | Variety Print July 7, 1998 | 12:00AM PT Does "Whistle Down the Wind" mark the end of the British musical boom? While one certainly hopes otherwise, it's difficult not to feel that the levitating freeway of Peter J. Davison's oppressive and rather scary set isn't the only thing headed nowhere. Does “Whistle Down the Wind” mark the end of the British musical boom? While one certainly hopes otherwise, it’s difficult not to feel that the levitating freeway of Peter J. Davison’s oppressive and rather scary set isn’t the only thing headed nowhere. Extensively rethought and revised since its abortive American premiere in Washington two seasons ago, this “Whistle” takes a promising idea and then so systematically botches it that one’s primary emotion is dismay. For all the changes composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has wrought in the world of the musical, “Whistle” occupies a retrograde niche that is as particular — and peculiar — as the hopeless American accents of the mostly (and ill-advisedly) British cast.

Lloyd Webber’s past plays left one cheering a design (“Cats”) or a song (“Oh What a Circus,” the kickoff to what remains Lloyd Webber’s best score, “Evita”) or sometimes both at once: There’s hardly a musical moment more dramatic than Norma Desmond’s return to the studio late in “Sunset Boulevard.” But as directed by Gale Edwards and choreographed (lamentably) by Anthony van Laast, “Whistle’s” most notable bequest may be the kind of cringe-making kids’ anthem (“When Children Rule the World”) that telethon promoters now and forever will love. It’s easy to see the appeal of the basic conceit: Bryan Forbes’ Lancashire-set 1961 English film (based on Mary Hayley Bell’s novella) transposed to the God-fearing rural American South of 1959, a land of ready-made revivalism and thwarted sexuality. Amid such an environment, is it any surprise that three young children — each slowly acclimatizing to the death of their mother — would mistake a convict on the lam for Jesus? This is Bible Belt territory, where impressionable young minds make questionable leaps of faith.

If only Lloyd Webber and co-librettists Edwards and Patricia Knop had written that story, “Whistle” might be whistling a happier tune. Instead, the show is everything Lloyd Webber’s fiercest critics tend always (and not always correctly) to accuse him of: It’s utterly synthetic, with the material folded into a production that on opening night seemed as shaky as the unattractively lit hydraulic set. And what is one to make of the portrait of the South? With Walter Herron Reynolds III’s imposingly sung Edward, “Whistle” has its own equivalent to “Show Boat’s” Joe, and the musical is so cavalier in its depiction of race relations that its lynch-mob-happy adults seem to have produced a United Colors of Benetton lineup of happily integrated kids. This show might have benefited from a book by someone like Sam Shepard — if he would ever do it — to honor a valid conception of Nowheresville, USA; but in writing and performance, that concept seems so inauthentic that “Whistle” might as well take place on the moon.

And whereas one had every reason to hope that the eagerly awaited Lloyd Webber-Jim Steinman score could paper over the cracks, the music only exacerbates the problem, with its faux-Wagnerian sonorities (reminiscent of Steinman’s recent Vienna venture “Dance of the Vampires”), ersatz anthems and greaser numbers that seem untethered to anything other than the collaborators’ pasts. “If Only” is mostly a rewrite of “Any Dream Will Do” from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” while “A Kiss Is a Terrible Thing to Waste” carries echoes of Steinman’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” The charm of Lloyd Webber’s last score, “By Jeeves,” surfaces all too late in the first-act closer “No Matter What,” a gain immediately nullified by a second-act opener, “Try Not to Be Afraid,” so totally generic that it evaporates as you’re listening to it.

In context, there’s little for the cast to do beyond transform themselves into putative rock ‘n’ rollers, even if there was far more charge to star Marcus Lovett’s thrillingly sung “Soliloquy” in the recent Lincoln Center revival of “Carousel” than there is to this show’s portentous and blaringly orchestrated equivalent, “Unsettled Scores,” the escaped con’s totemic paean to his own despair. Elsewhere, the book is too sketchy and inchoate to make anything of his sexual attraction to the teenage (and none too subtly named) Swallow, whom the sweet-voiced Lottie Mayor presents as a total blank. Still, as Rodgers & Hammerstein might have asked, what’s the use of grumblin’? At its heart, “Whistle” is “The Phantom of the Opera” continuation that its composer has long been promising, since the two story skeletons — societal outcast redeemed (or not) by a young and pure love — are basically the same.

And so are its values (despite all this country’s talk of a new pared-down musical aesthetic): Just as “Phantom” left audiences in thrall to a falling chandelier, the most spontaneous applause in “Whistle” is saved for the briefest glimpse of a speeding train. Whistle Down the Wind REVIEW: Whistle Down The Wind, Union Theatre ✭✭✭ REVIEW: Whistle Down The Wind, Union Theatre ✭✭✭ By Stephen Collins on 3rd February 2015 in Off West End , Reviews 0 Whistle Down The Wind 1 February 2015 3 Stars It is not every story that becomes the subject of more than one musical. Peter Pan, The Wild Party and Phantom of the Opera are examples that spring easily to mind, but doubtless there are others. What is possibly unique though is for more than one work of one composer to be the subject of the work of more than one other creative team. Yet, there it is. First, Phantom of the Opera was reimagined a few times after the Lloyd Webber version, most notably by Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit.

Now, playing at the Union Theatre , is the London professional premiere of Russell Labey and Richard Taylor’s version of Whistle Down The Wind, based on Mary Hayley Bell’s book and the successful film adapted from it, upon which the moderately successful Lloyd Webber musical (which has had several incarnations) of the same name was also based. Directed by the insightful Sasha Regan and with astute, skilled musical direction from the gifted David Griffiths, this version of Whistle Down The Wind is not a flashy affair, but an honest, delicate one. The narrative is the familiar one. Three siblings find a stranger in their barn. He is wounded and they believe him to be Jesus Christ come back to earth. They keep the stranger’s presence secret from the grown-ups even though they know that the grown-ups are all worried because a murderer is on the loose and being hunted. They see no correlation between the man the grown-ups hunt and their Jesus. Inevitably, the secret gets out among the other children, their friends, and they all come to see and feel the presence of the stranger. They all believe he is Christ.

Eventually, the local bully finds out about the secret and betrays the presence of the stranger to the grown-ups, who come to hunt him down, bring him to justice. But the children stand in their way, prevent their access to the stranger. The barn where the stranger has been hiding bursts into flames. When the remains are examined, there is no trace of the stranger, but there is a gift left behind for the children. Perhaps also for the grown-ups. The particular interest in the piece comes from the ambiguity: it is never clear whether the stranger is the murderer being sought by the adults. And, if he is not, who is he and why is he wounded when he is found by the children? Could he actually be Christ returned to Earth? Given how he galvanises the faith of the children, does it matter who he is? It’s a simple tale about belief, faith and love. Happily, Labey and Taylor completely understand that and so the book, score and lyrics are not flashy or unseemly; rather, they combine to evoke the simplicity of life in Lancashire in the 1950’s: a time when the possibility of a miracle was still tangible.

The story is told concisely and with real feeling. Scenes move easily, not clunkily, and the sense of the words and situations help create the period mood of the piece, as well as the inherent, ambiguous drama. There is a real honesty in the approach of the creators which is refreshing for this simple, wondrous tale. The score is similarly honest, with some difficult harmonies and pretty, simple melodies that have a nostalgic glow about them without feeling pastiche or dull. The music enhances the mood constantly; the songs don’t always move the action along or provide insight into character – sometimes they are just songs which emphasise or give colour to what has happened or been said. This approach, perhaps counter-intuitively, results in the music becoming an integrated and welcome part of the story-telling. Another clever aspect to the score centres around its sense of childhood. Where the children sing, it sounds like music children might sing. Where the adults sing, the musical demands are more onerous; more complexity is introduced to the score. In the climactic scene when the child believers defy the adults and keep them away from the stranger in the barn, the anthem they sing, Follow! Follow! Follow Him! is powerful and stirring.

Regan’s sure and steady direction brings the piece to life with charm and warmth. From the moment the three siblings rescue three new-born kittens from drowning right through to the exploration of the burnt-out barn and the discovery of the stranger’s gift, the story unfolds from the viewpoint of a youngster; Regan makes the audience feel like one of the village children: watching, involved, committed and then captivated. She brings you inside the story, making you complicit in the unfolding events, to great effect. The cast are committed to Regan’s vision and unite in conveying it convincingly. Sensibly, Regan does not use real children to play the roles of the village children; she uses young adults who play down. It works at every level: their realisation of the youngsters is real, not silly; their sense of community is complete so that when they rebel it is believable; and, in each performer, you see both the child and the adult they will become, the adult forever affected by these events. As the central siblings, Cathy, Nan and Charles, Grace Osborn, Imelda Warren-Green and Alex James Ellison are each splendidly natural, full of charm, and the banter and bickering to and fro of growing up.

Ellison was especially good at capturing the essence of the little brother and the sense of sisterhood between Osborn and Warren-Green was delightful. Together with Chris Coleman’s impressive, sturdy and loving Dad and Kathryn Hamilton-Hall’s no-nonsense Auntie, the central family is completely believable, warm and funny. They all sing well, but Osborn and Ellison are particularly good. Callum McArdle plays the stranger, the bearded, wounded man known only as The Man. He has a terrific voice and presence and easily meets the acting challenges the role provides. He is both wounded monster and lost miracle worker; the duality in his being is cleverly portrayed, never more clearly than in I Don’t Know What They’re Waiting To Hear and the duet with Osborn, Please, Jesus. Joshua Lewindon makes a fine village bully, but shows his versatility when he plays another boy who is kind, donating his jumper to the stranger. Harry Wright is excellent as the bespectacled musical child in the village and Romero Clark displays an impressive voice and authoritarian presence as the Policeman.

The rest of the cast are all good (although there could be less miss Prism in Bryan Hodgson’s effete Vicar) and when all sing together, the effect is powerful indeed, musically and dramatically. Nik Corrall’s designs, both set and costumes, work well in the small space that is the Union and more than adequately convey a sense of proper time and place. The final reveal of the gift and the burning of the barn are especially well done, not the least because of Tim Deiling’s moody lighting. It’s good to see Regan championing British musicals at the Union and refreshing to see a new musical that represents new ground. Boyzone may never record a song from this score but that is not to say this version is inferior to Lloyd Webber’s. It’s not. It’s quite different – and its heart is in the right place and the score deserves attention. Well worth making time to see. Whistle Down The Wind runs at the Union Theatre until 21 February 2015 About Stephen Collins With years of experience on both sides of the curtain, Stephen Collins has worked as an actor, singer, director, producer and casting consultant, indulging his passion for live theatre.

For balance, he is also a media lawyer who has worked in-house for the likes of Channel 4 and The Sunday Times. In his ‘spare’ time, he can usually be found in an audience. He thinks the West End and London is the centre of the theatrical universe (sorry Broadway!), but fears it's not possible to see absolutely everything that’s on there. He doesn’t stop trying though. Cocktails help when it all gets too much.

Question: Who wrote the book on which the musical Whistle Down the Wind was based?
Answer: Mary Hayley Bell