The Beautiful Game (musical) The Beautiful Game (musical) The Beautiful Game (sometimes performed as The Boys in the Photograph) is a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton about a group of teenagers growing up during The Troubles in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1969. The title of the musical ("The Beautiful Game") is a commonly used reference to football, the origins of which are disputed. The plot, which is centred on a local football (soccer) team, focuses on the attempt to overcome the violence that has engulfed their community. The Catholic team has one atheist player, Del (who comes from a Protestant family)
Andrew Lloyd Webber "Jeeves" failed to make any impact at the box office and closed after a run of only three weeks in 1975. Many years later, Lloyd Webber and Ayckbourn revisited this project, producing a thoroughly reworked and more successful version entitled "By Jeeves" (1996). Only two of the songs from the original production remained ("Half a Moment" and "Banjo Boy"). Lloyd Webber collaborated with Rice once again to write "Evita" (1978 in London/1979 in U.S.), a musical based on the life of Eva Perón. As with "Jesus Christ Superstar", Evita was released first as a concept album (1976) and featured Julie