Marti Webb @martiwebb - Tumblr Blog

Marti performing alongside Tommy Steele and the cast of Half A Sixpence at the Royal Variety Performance in 1963.

The show was her first opportunity to play a lead in the West End at the age of just 19. The company manager on her previous show and West End debut, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off, was George Cross, the father of the playwright Beverley Cross and he recommended her to his son as the “perfect Ann Pornick”. Webb was auctioned thirteen times for the role before finally being cast, but was later called in to dub the singing voice of Julia Foster, her replacement in the film version. She found Foster’s unusual speaking style easy to pick up.

#marti webb #tommy steele #half a sixpence #musical #royal variety performance

“Losing My Mind”, from Stephen Sondheim’s Follies, as recorded for Webb’s 1989 album Performance, which featured songs from musical theatre.

Despite a long career in musicals, Marti has never appeared in a Sondheim show. She recorded another of his standards, “Send in the Clowns” in 1991.

#marti webb #stephen sondheim #follies

Marti’s recording of the standard “Memory” which was included on her 1989 album Performance on which she was backed by the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Webb first appeared in Cats, which featured the poetry of T S Eliot, set to music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and choreography by Gillian Lynne, at the New London Theatre. She later played Grizabella on the first UK tour of the show in the late 1980s. Marti’s later husband Tom Button was a sound engineer on the tour.

#marti webb #cats #memory #andrew lloyd webber #t s eliot #trevor nunn

“I Am What I Am”, from the musical La Cage aux Folles, which was included on Marti’s 1989 album Performance.

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Marti’s recording of “The Music of the Night” from The Phantom of the Opera. Written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe, it was included on her 1989 album Performance.

#marti webb #andrew lloyd webber #the phantom of the opera #charles hart #richard stilgoe

“Blow, Gabriel, Blow” from Webb’s 1989 album Performance, which featured songs from musical theatre.

A revival of Anything Goes, which features the song, opened at the Prince Edward Theatre, London, in 1989 starring Elaine Paige. Paige, who Webb succeeded as Eva Peron in Evita in 1980, had seen Patti LuPone play Reno Sweeney at the Kennedy Center in 1987 and realised that the best way to ensure she could play the role in London would be to secure the British rights. She and her then partner Tim Rice co-produced the show via the company Anchorage Productions Ltd.

The song was written by Cole Porter.

#marti webb #anything goes #cole porter

Marti’s recording of the now standard “I Dreamed a Dream” from the musical Les Miserables. This version was recorded for her 1989 album Performance, which also featured the Philharmonia Orchestra.

The song has been recorded by hundreds of artists. A live performance by Webb was included in the 1992 concert The Magic of the Musicals, later broadcast on BBC One.

#marti webb #les miserables #i dreamed a dream

“Once You Lose Your Heart” was part of the score of Me and My Girl, one of the the biggest hit musicals in London when Webb recorded her solo album Performance, featuring songs from musical theatre, in 1989.

A live version of the song was included in the 1992 concert The Magic of the Musicals.

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“In One of My Weaker Moments” was part of the score of Budgie, a musical version of the television series, which played in the West End of London in the late 1980s. Anita Dobson originally performed the song in the show and released her version as a single, produced by her partner and later husband Brian May.

Dobson’s biggest hit at that point was “Anyone Can Fall in Love”, her version of the theme from EastEnders. It was written by Simon May and Leslie Osbourne with lyrics by Webb’s manager Don Black. May and Black later collaborated on “Always There”, a sung version of the theme from Howard’s Way, which proved to be a hit for Marti in 1986.

#marti webb #budgie

“Anything But Lonely” was written by Andrew Lloyd Webber, Don Black and Charles Hart for the original London production of Aspects of Love in 1989. Black had earlier written Tell Me on a Sunday which catapulted Webb to national fame at the beginning of the decade. Hart was the primary lyricist on The Phantom of the Opera, one of the biggest hit musicals of the 1980s.

Sarah Brightman released her version of this song as a single.

#marti webb #aspects of love #charles hart #andrew lloyd webber #don black

Webb performed “Almost Like Being in Love” as the audition piece for what proved to be her first West End show Stop the World, I Want to Get Off in 1961.

During the audition, the creative team plus a few friends including Lionel Bart, Lionel Blair and Alma Cogan shared a joke in the stalls. Webb was distracted, which made them laugh even more and she became frustrated by their apparent indifference to her performance and tried to leave the stage abruptly at the end of the song. Anthony Newley, the show’s star and lyricist, had to call her back and ask if they could hear another song. She was so flustered by it, she dropped her sheet music across the stage, which led to more laughter from the little audience. Newley, who she came to regard as her mentor, later said he loved her from that moment. He and Bricusse, recognising her talent at just 17, expanded her role.

Just two years later, she landed her first West End lead opposite Tommy Steele in Half a Sixpence.

#marti webb #brigadoon

“The Last Man in My Life”, taken from Marti’s 1989 album Performance which was recorded with the Philharmonia Orchestra. The song was written for the rewritten version of Tell Me on a Sunday that formed the first half of the show Song & Dance which opened in London at the Palace Theatre in 1982.

The second half of the show featuring dancer Wayne Sleep alongside a troupe performing to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Variations, his setting of the caprice by Paganini. At the end of the show, Webb would return to the stage and duet on the song “When You Want to Fall in Love”, the tune of which was previously and subsequently reworked as “Unexpected Song”.

In 2014, when Webb reprised the “original” version of Tell Me on a Sunday in London, she also included this song as it was apparently one of Lloyd Webber’s favourites.

#marti webb #song and dance #tell me on a sunday #don black #andrew lloyd webber

“I’m Very You, You’re Very Me” from Tell Me on a Sunday, Marti’s 1980 hit album, written by Don Black and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

#marti webb #tell me on a sunday #don black #andrew lloyd webber

“Don’t Let the Moment Pass” from Freudiana, a collaboration between between Eric Woolfson and Alan Parsons.

The track was released as a single in 1990.

#marti webb #alan parsons project #eric woolfson

Part of the promotional video for “Ben”, Marti’s 1985 hit from which the proceeds were donated to the Ben Hardwick Appeal.

#marti webb #don black #walter scharf

Marti performs “You and I”, from the musical Chess, with the singer Mark Rattray during The Magic of the Musicals concert in 1992. Chess was written by Tim Rice with Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA and released as an album in 1984.

Mark Rattray won the final of Opportunity Knocks in 1990 and was contracted to tour with Webb in The Magic of the Musicals. The show proved hugely successful, with an album and video later being released and the show taken to Canada and the USA.

#marti webb #mark rattray #chess #tim rice #bjorn ulvaeus #benny andersson #abba

Marti performs a second tribute to the wartime star Gracie Fields, at the 1986 Royal Variety Performance.

#marti webb #gracie fields #royal variety performance

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