TALKABOUT THEATRE
Cameron Mackintosh is the first to declare he was “obnoxiously precocious” as a child. Having decided on his career on his eighth birthday, he is now the most successful theatrical producer in history.
“IT’S WHAT I WAS BORN TO DO. I was in England and Scotland, and has an estimated fortune taken to see the show called Salad Days, which was of £825m ($1.47b), according to The Sunday Times Rich about a magic piano – it was a big hit in 1954,” he recalls. List 2013. Home is in rural Somerset, England. Under the spell of that performance, the young Now 67, Mackintosh expresses no desire to slow down, Mackintosh was not fantasising about becoming an with 30 to 40 productions to open in the next three years. actor. “I was going to create theatre and I never wavered.” “It’s like an army,” he says of his collaborators and staff. So specific was his goal, he later chided one of his “I have only a very limited amount of people I completely parents’ friends, who commended a radio program about trust, who have grown up with me.” impresarios to the then nine-year-old. “Impresarios, In person, traces of that irrepressible child remain – an I said, very pompously, put on other people’s shows. energetic, focused musical theatre cognoscente – as he I want to put on my own.” rattles off anecdotes about Rodgers and Hammerstein, A man of his word, Mackintosh earned his first Ziegfeld, Oklahoma!, Porgy And Bess, Show Boat, Chess, producer’s credit at the age of 20. More than four decades Mamma Mia!, Wicked, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Book later, he is at the helm of the longest-running musicals Of Mormon and West Side Story. on New York City’s Broadway and in London’s West End – Les Misérables and The Phantom Of The Opera – as A REVAMPED production of Les Misérables was Cameron well as perennial favourites Oliver!, Miss Saigon, Mary launched four years ago in London to celebrate its 25th Mackintosh Poppins and Cats. Knighted in 1996 for services to anniversary. The show opens at Her Majesty’s Theatre British theatre, he owns seven London theatres, estates in Melbourne this month (previews from June 22).
Monsieur and Madame Thénardier, from UK production of Les Misérables, 2010 master The driving force behind the most successful musicals ever to play on Broadway or in the West End, producer Cameron Mackintosh shows no signs of slowing down. With a revamped Les Misérables about to open in Melbourne, he tells Pip Cummings why the story always comes first. LES MIS PHOTOGRAPHY: MICHAEL LE POER TRENCH; MACKINTOSH: GETTY IMAGES
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THE BOAT & GAVROCHE PHOTOGRAPHY: MATTHEW MURPHY; AUSTRALIAN CAST: JOHN TSIAVIS