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)
Concept musical the show is based around a concept rather than a linear plot, author Andrew Lloyd Webber had intended to create a show that was not meant to "reflect [or] comment on the world, even in an oblique, metaphorical way." This was a drastic difference from the metaphors that defined the concept musical. Thus, the concept musical branched out into the megamusical, which utilizes spectacle and increased technology to "radicalize the imagistic potential of musical theatre." "Starlight Express", an "experiment" by Lloyd Webber, debuted on the West End in 1984 and on Broadway in 1987. Like "Cats", the show focuses on