Broadway legend Andrew Lloyd Webber shares a nice anecdote about Donald Trump

(Image credit: BBC/YouTube)

last updated 15 November 2016

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson isn't the only prominent Briton cautiously optimistic about the leadership of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. On Saturday's Graham Norton Show, the host asked composer Andrew Lloyd Webber if he knew Trump, and Webber said yes. "Well, if you've been around in New York, and you've been kind of vaguely in the scene in New York, it's quite hard not to know the president-elect," he explained. Norton noted that Trump has a connection to The School of Rock, Webber's newest Broadway musical, and the composer said yes, kind of, then told a rather nice story about Trump.

"He wanted to come to the opening of The School of Rock, and actually I persuaded him not to come," Webber said. "When we opened over a year ago now — and I really don't think, I genuinely wonder whether he really thought any of this was going to happen, I mean, I don't know — but anyway, I sort of said, 'Look, the kids, it's their night, you're so famous, don't you think it would be a good idea perhaps to just to?— and he was good about it. And he said, 'No, I won't come.'"

Webber, who famously found the beauty in a monster living under an opera house, said he isn't much of a fan of Candidate Trump. "I think what he's been doing, what he's been saying at the rallies and everything is absolutely shocking, and I mean along with a lot of other Brit composers, you know, we asked him not to use our music, because he kept using it, you know?" he said "There's nothing you can actually do to stop that. But I just don't know, I don't think he's an idiot, and I think if he surrounds himself with good people, we might just be all right." Norton said that whatever you think of Trump, he's an amazing story and would make for a colorful musical, and Webber offered a suggestion: The Lady and the Trump. But if he's seriously looking to bring Trump's tale to Broadway, he'd better start composing: "Morning Joe" Scarborough has a head start. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.