Sarah Brightman

Andrew Lloyd Webber has been working on this sequel musical off and on since 1990, which is so weird.

It's so weird that 1990 was also the year that he got divorced from his wife, Sarah Brightman, the original Christine.

Yeah, it's so weird.

Wow, that's so weird.

so

big.

And he's like, by the way, I'm totally over Sarah Brightman.

I'm over Sarah Brightman.

There have been some space tourists and people who are paying to go into space.

Sarah Brightman, who is a famous singer, will be going to visit the International Space Station as a space tourist next year, a little bit before Tim Peake gets there.

So Tim Peake... is our first government-supported astronaut.

He will also be our first long-duration astronaut.

I get the oldest ones.

Sarah Brightman I used to get all the time.

Oh, yeah, the

opera singer.

She was married to Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Yeah, it's anybody that's just got blue eyes and white skin is basically...

You do look like Sarah Brightman, actually.

Like, you actually do.

So Phantom of the Opera is a British musical based on the Gaston Leroux novel of the same name, featuring music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart, additional lyrics by Richard Stilgoe, and book by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Richard Stilgoe.

It opened in the West End in 1986 with direction by Hal Prince, starring Sarah Brightman as Christine, Greatest Showpod alum Michael Crawford as The Phantom, and Steve Barton as Raoul.

An identical production transferred to Broadway in 1988 with the same principal cast, and these original productions won both Olivier and Tony Awards for Best Musical, as well as Best Actor for Crawford.

Uh, the West End production, the original West End production closed March 2020 due to COVID, but then a scaled down production with revised staging and, like, slightly more cost-efficient, uh, set pieces and a scaled back orchestra opened in the exact same theater in July 2021.

Mm.

That's a, that's just not the voice type that you expect to go with that role.

So when we make a choice like that, should we not be doing stuff like that? Should we always try to find someone who sounds kind of like Sarah Brightman or kind of like Michael Crawford, uh, especially in the original production-

Right

Yeah, it's, ah.

It was definitely a very challenging song, but I was grateful to work with Andrew Lloyd Webber and be in a set with, you know, um, Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman, and then me.

Iconic.

You know? Like, one of these things does belong here.

[laughs]

So, uh, you guys, first up we have Sarah Brightman and the Aliens with Madame Hyde from 1979.

So years before the Phantom of the Opera, an 18-year-old Brightman was jobbing as a disco session singer, cutting space novelty singles under a rotating cast of names.

And the Starship Troopers, and the Hot Gossip, and the Aliens.

Okay.

[laughs]

Uh, is it gonna be able to beat Sarah Brightman? I don't know.

[upbeat music] Oh, got the party sounds.

In the world.

Sarah Brightman playing Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

I know what I'm talking about.

Brian.

We've got a noisy line there, Gav, but thank you.

We'll write that down and we might see if we can do that as well, maybe the next hour.

Now, that request that we had, Jay, was for Sarah Brightman.

But we're not too sure that she ever recorded

Yeah, and then donated some of her wardrobe to be used as well.

And finally, maybe finally, we've got Sarah Brightman.

Sarah Brightman.

As Blind Mag.

Yeah.

Love Affair and A Day Without Love from 1968.

Not Sarah Brightman, I'm afraid.

In fact, most people are saying...

I don't know.

I want to listen to the entire, you know, CD tracks, everything for this.

And so thankfully, our library, local library had just a ton of like VHS tapes of like the Michael Crawford, Sarah Brightman, the music videos, you know, that they first did when they're doing all the promo stuff for the musical.

Oh,

my God.