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 to the poetry of T. S. Eliot. "Cats" (1981) was to become the longest running musical in London, where it ran for 21 years before closing. On Broadway, "Cats" ran for 18 years, a record which would ultimately be broken by another Lloyd Webber musical, "The Phantom of the Opera". "Starlight Express" (1984) was a commercial hit, but received negative reviews from the critics. It enjoyed a record run in the West End, but ran for less than two years on Broadway. The show has also seen two tours of the US, as well as an Australian/Japanese production, a three-year