Coping with stormy Webber

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER was once ‘practically dragged’ out of a West End theatre after he threw his toys out of the pram during a preview performance of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Veteran West End musical director Mike Dixon recalls the composer ‘getting agitated’ as he watched a revival of the show at the Lyceum, where there were ‘some major sound issues’ in the newly refurbished playhouse.

‘The sound issues, of course, were not yet resolved and the inevitable frustration spilled out of him like a mini volcano,’ Dixon recalls in his newly published memoirs, Turn Around And Take A Bow! — My Musical Life: ‘I could see that audience members were noticing, so I said very forcibly to him that he should come out of the auditorium and to the relative calm of the stalls bar.

‘We were only a couple of rows from the exit, so I practically dragged him out with me. Once we got there, he started venting his frustration and I very loudly and in the nicest way possible told him to “Shut up”. I explained that, of course, the sound was not yet right, the sound deadening pieces had yet to be fitted.’

Lord Lloyd-Webber later apologised and thanked him for ‘saving him from embarrassment’.