What Country on the Continent for These Concerts? Quiz

"The Beautiful Game" is a collaboration with Andrew Lloyd-Webber's music and book and lyrics by Ben Elton. It had its West End premiere in 2000 with a run of just over 11 months. A 2008 rewrite and release with the new title "The Boys in the Photograph" played in London and Australia, and had a Canadian tour with better results.

The musical is set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and follows the story of a group of young people who are involved with a local football (soccer) team. The main storyline follows a love story between Mary, a Catholic girl, and John, a Protestant boy, and illustrates the prejudices and problems they face in the divided society they live within.

It portrays the main themes of love, friendship, comradery and the harsh reality of sectarianism in the politically charged unrest of 1960s Northern Ireland and how 'the beautiful game' can transcend these and provide a source of hope and unity.

The original had a much starker and bleaker second act and ending while the rewrite showed the possibility of forgiveness and redemption and a chance of a happy ending.

"Brigadoon" was created by composer Frederick Loewe with Alan Jay Lerner's lyrics. It premiered on Broadway in 1947 and then the West End in 1949. Both had respectable runs and it's had many revivals. It also led to a 1954 movie and 1966 television show.

The plot revolves around two American tourists, Tommy Albright and Jeff Douglas, who are on a hunting trip in Scotland and stumble into a mysterious village. Tommy falls in love with a villager called Fiona but must decide on whether to stay with her or return to the life he knows as Brigadoon is a magical village that only appears for one day every century and the villagers cannot leave.

The musical mainly explores the themes of love and/or destiny but also illustrates how a place can remain pure and enchanted if it remains untouched by the corrupting influence of the modern outside world.

"Oliver!" is a musical adaptation of Charles Dicken's famous novel "Oliver Twist" with both lyrics and music by Lionel Bart. It had a record-breaking run in London when it premiered in 1960 and was taken to Broadway three years later. It has been in multiple revivals around the world. A 1968 movie version won 6 Academy Awards including Best Picture.

The story follows young Oliver Twist, an orphan in a workhouse, who manages to escape to London, but it's a grim and dangerous place in the Victorian era and he falls in with a band of children who are leading a life of crime guided by the charismatic adult Fagin and his young offsider known as The Artful Dodger. Fagin is beholden to the cruel and vicious Bill Sykes, whose sweet girlfriend Nancy is loved by all the boys.

The story is a social commentary of poverty in Victorian England where the poor lived downtrodden lives of danger and despair to just survive, but also explores the themes of friendship, loyalty and the search for family and belonging.

"The Phantom of the Opera" is another musical based on a classic book, this time by the French author Gaston Leroux. It was composed by Andrew Lloyd Weber with lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe. Its premier was in the West End in 1986 and is still running as of 2023 - COVID restrictions withstanding.

It opened on Broadway in 1988 and played its final performance in April 2023. It was the most financially successful entertainment event ever until 2014 when "The Lion King" surpassed it. In 2019 statistics showed it had been seen by over 140 million people in 183 cities in 41 countries around the world.

The musical revolves around The Phantom, a disfigured musical genius who lives in the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera House, who is tutoring the young ingenue Christine Daae and becomes obsessed with her. The Opera House gets a new patron, Raoul the Vicomte de Chagny, who Christine knew as a child and the two fall in love; the Phantom is not happy - his love takes a dark and possessive turn which leads to much trouble at the theatre.

The themes themselves are simple - beauty and ugliness, love and hate, power and loss. It illustrates the consequences of social rejection, isolation and yearning for acceptance and then shows us the power of love and its transformative and redemptive nature.

"Cabaret" is a musical with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. It is based on a 1951 play which in turn was based on the 1939 novel "Goodbye to Berlin" by Christopher Isherwood, which drew on his experiences of this time. It opened on Broadway in 1966 and was a box office hit, running for three years. The West End premiere was in 1968 and a movie was made of it in 1972.

The musical is set in a cabaret called the Kit Kat Klub in Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power in the 1930s. The club and its patrons symbolise the decadence and hedonism of the time with the impending threat of fascism. In a time of political instability, the club offers a metaphorical form of escapism from the reality of a society on the brink of collapse.

The main story line is that of a romance between American writer Cliff Bradshaw and Sally Bowles, an English cabaret performer. The Master of Ceremonies at the club provides a narrative to the events as the outside world intrudes on their haven and the characters are forced to figure out who they are individually in a society that is demanding a collective identity.

"The Sound of Music" is the last collaboration of the famous team of Rogers and Hammerstein - music by Richard Rogers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, with a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on a memoir written by Maria von Trapp.

The original Broadway production was in 1959 and it was nominated for nine Tony Awards of which it won five. The London premiere was in 1961 and it has had many revivals around the world. It was also adapted into a movie in 1965, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, which also won five Academy Awards including Best Picture.

The musical revolves around Maria, who becomes a governess to the seven Von Trapp children who live with their widowed father, a retired navy captain whom she eventually marries. It is also set against the backdrop of WWII with the Nazi occupation of Austria where the family live and includes a daring escape across the Alps into Switzerland.

The transformative power and joy of music is a strong theme in the story, as is love, family and unity. Faith and spirituality are also strong messages along with finding one's true calling in life. We also see the family refusing to align themselves with the Nazis with total resistance to authoritarianism.

"A Little Night Music" has lyrics and music by Stephen Sondheim and is based on an Ingmar Bergman movie called "Smiles of a Summer Night". It premiered on Broadway in 1973 and London in 1975, with many revivals. The title is a literal English translation of Mozart's Serenade No. 13.

The musical is set in Sweden at the turn of the 20th century and is based around a weekend in the country by several couples and their romantic entanglements with each other. The central characters are an aging actress Desiree Armfeldt, her former lover Fredrik Egerman, his young wife Anne, and the acerbic Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm.

The main theme is obviously love but that ranges from raging passionate desires to a mature enduring one. The characters explore their sexuality and liberation - or lack thereof - as they grapple with the consequences of pursuing or denying them. It also has a running theme of fate and coincidence along with regret and longing for the choices they did not make.

"Fiddler on the Roof" has music from Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, based upon "Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman) and Other Tales" by Sholem Aleichem. Opening on Broadway in 1964 and in the West End in 1967, it was the first musical to run for longer than 3,000 performances and won nine Tony Awards.

The musical is set in an early 20th century Russian village and revolves around a poor milkman called Tevye who is trying to hold onto his religious and cultural ideals in a rapidly changing world. He has five daughters who are challenging the traditional matchmaking customs, Tsarist Russia is facing revolutionaries and anti-Jewish sentiment is growing.

The importance of tradition is a cornerstone of the story amidst a background of generational conflict and fear of cultural persecution, but the driving force behind it all is family and love.

"Mamma Mia!" is a jukebox musical based on the songs of ABBA. It was written by Catherine Johnson, a British playwright, and composed by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus from the Swedish group. It premiered in London in 1999, where it continued to run until COVID in 2020, and the Broadway initial performance ran from 2001 - 2014.

"Mamma Mia! The Movie" was released in 2008 and, while it had mixed review from the critics, the fans loved it and it spawned a sequel "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again" in 2017. Both movies were box office hits.

The storyline is basic. Sophie, a young girl brought up on a Greek Island with her single mother, is getting married. After reading her mother's diary she sends an invite to three men who could be her father. All three arrive and chaos ensues.

The show doesn't have any deep underlining themes beyond love, friendship, family and personal identity, but it is a feel good romp that does what it sets out to do - entertain the audience with an uplifting romantic comedy based on well-loved songs and a high energy stage show.

"Man of La Mancha" is a musical adaptation of Dale Wasserman's play "I, Don Quixote", which was inspired by Miguel de Cervantes' classic novel "Don Quixote". The musical has a score by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion. Opening on Broadway in 1965, it ran for six years and won five Tony awards. The West End opening three years later had a respectable run, but not the highs of the American production.

The musical follows the story of Cervantes himself who, along with his manservant, is imprisoned during the Spanish Inquisition. To defend himself from the other prisoners Cervantes puts on a play within a play.

He transforms himself into Alonso Quijana who, in turn, believes he is the valiant knight Don Quixote. Embarking on his quest with his loyal squire Sancho Panza he meets many characters who challenge his view of the world. Don Quixote sees the world as he wants it to be, not how it really is.

There is really only one main theme in the musical - idealism. The absolute power of the imagination and an unwavering commitment for a better, nobler world. I'm sure most trivia players are aware of the Cervantes comment about 'tilting at windmills'.

His famous song from the musical "The Impossible Dream" says it all:

"To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go
To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star"