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)
The Beautiful Game (musical) indignation and intelligence. Brave and bitterly truthful...this show...need not fear comparison with West Side Story. Offhand, I cannot think of greater praise". The show never made it to Broadway. A rewrite by Lloyd-Webber and Elton, with the new title "The Boys in the Photograph", received a workshop production by students at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in April 2008, directed by Nick Phillips. Subsequently, in April 2009 a full-scale production was presented at the Manitoba Theatre Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. This production transferred to the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in September 2009. The rewrite gave