Downton Abbey: The Musical

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 12:12pm

Why not?

Why, I said, not?

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 2:05pm

PJ, who would be your songwriters of choice? I can already see Ashford chomping at the bit to do some awful 20s flapper choreography for Season 3.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 2:09pm

They better hurry up because Angela Lansbury is the only person who could play The Dowager Countess in the musical.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 2:24pm

OMG you guys--she would be SOOO good. I watched the "docu" on the show she hosted (which was basically a long trailer for season 3) and she did seem to be a big fan...

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 2:55pm

Michael Cumpsty as Bates

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 3:07pm

Cumpsty would be perfect!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 3:09pm

Wow, Cumpsty is a really unfortunate name.

I'd probably totally see this if it was a musical, but personally it's not screaming out for musicalization to me.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 3:49pm

Nor do I, but it's a fun game to play.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 3:58pm

Yeah, I don't see where songs would help the story, unless it was some lame concept like the "downstairs" crew singing all the time and the more repressed "upstairs" group never singing--a concept which sounds even more annoying now that I've typed it out.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 11:05pm

I can see numbers for all three of the daughters (a love ballad for Mary possibly with Matthew, a comic lament for Edith about being the "middle girl" and a rousing political march for Sybil and Tom) and possibly even a trio for the three sisters, a la "Matchmaker, Matchmaker."

While we're on the Fiddler theme, possibly an opening number for Robert like "Tradition."

I can see the Dowager having a second-act "liaisons"-like number or the first-act closer.

I'm not sure what Cora could sing, but I can see Isobel having a very boring number that is cut out of town.

And Aunt Rosamund, the bitchy one--she can also have a number that gets cut.

As for the downstairs staff, Carson gets to do the opening number (the "Tradition"-like number) with the Earl, because they are the two people who are upholding the old-world ways.

Mrs. Hughes and Anna and Mrs. Patmore and Daisy could do a great quartet about housework--maybe a quintet with O'Brien, who gets to be even bitchier in the musical version.

And maybe the quintet includes the men: Bates and Barrow and William and Jimmy.

Barrow, of course gets a number: slinky and sexy and nasty, more like a Kander and Ebb number from one of their darkest shows.

There's a Christmas number, of course, and there can be one or several dance numbers at parties and balls. The Sybil/Tom number can be a dance number, and maybe there can be a waltz that is danced by Cora and Robert, and then by Mary and Matthew, and then by Bates and Anna.

And of course the Shirley MacLaine character gets an "American" number.

Updated On: 11/28/12 at 11:05 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 11/28/12 at 11:11pm

"but I can see Isobel having a very boring number that is cut out of town."

LOL! Brilliant.

[Scripps2]

Posted: 11/29/12 at 4:13pm

Okay - PJ for book and score.

However, I think the director has to be British....

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/29/12 at 5:19pm

Ugh. You know how I feel about British directors mis-directing American musicals...but I guess this can't really be considered an "American" musical, can it?

But since it was my idea, Scripps--can you make sure that the British director doesn't get all prissy and snippy about buttoning the end of the numbers for applause? An opening number must NOT "bleed" into the next scene just because some British wunderkind thinks it's "cheap and shoddy" to stop for ("beg for") applause.

So when the music slows down and Tevye says "Without tradition, our lives would be as shaky as..." and then he pauses and stretches his arm out to the man of the roof of the little house and continues:

"...a fiddler on the ROOF!"--and the orchestra goes BOOM! The audience applauds!

Tell the British Director we do that at the end of EVERY SONG--okay?

Or almost every one. The director can "kill the hand" at the end of one or two of the more solemn numbers, like the one in which Matthew comes back from the war or the one in which Lady Sybil gives birth.

Updated On: 11/30/12 at 05:19 PM

[NYadgal]

Posted: 11/29/12 at 10:34pm

Victor Garber as Lord Grantham


PJ, your ideas are brilliant.

[NYadgal]

Posted: 11/29/12 at 10:40pm

Ben Davis could play Matthew Crawley.

He has a dreamy baritone voice!

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 11/30/12 at 11:08am

Like Garber, Davis, Lansbury.

Gillian Anderson as Cora.
Julie Walters as Isobel.

[madbrian]

Posted: 11/30/12 at 11:21am

Michael Crawford as Lord Grantham. ScarJo as Sybil.

I've always said the parallels between Downton and Fiddler are numerous, and musicalization would make the parallels more obvious.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/30/12 at 12:11pm

If Julie Walters plays Isobel, they wouldn't DARE cut that song.

[SonofMammaMiaSam]

Posted: 11/30/12 at 12:29pm

Carrie Underwood for the Dowager Countess.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/30/12 at 12:32pm

She's too Austrian!

[Jungle Red]

Posted: 11/30/12 at 1:52pm

This thread wins.

I don't know what, but it wins.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/30/12 at 2:28pm

Who could play Lady Mary opposite Ben Davis?

[Jungle Red]

Posted: 11/30/12 at 2:38pm

Sutton Foster.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/30/12 at 2:51pm

Hmmm...maybe someone a little more ethereal.

[madbrian]

Posted: 11/30/12 at 3:05pm

Well, Sutton may be the only singer with the eyebrows to play Lady Mary.