Lloyd Webber's lyrical prince

With his version of the classic children’s novel ‘The Little Prince’ now on in Belfast’s Lyric Theatre, Nicholas – son of Andrew – Lloyd Webber is making his own bid to take over the family musical crown

THERE HAS been an unusually high level of anticipation surrounding this year's Christmas show at Belfast's Lyric Theatre. The Little Princeis a new musical version of the 1940s novella Le Petit Princeby Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The tale unfolds through a series of deceptively simple yet profound meditations on love, loss, loneliness and friendship, seen through the eyes of a child prince from a tiny faraway asteroid, who has fallen to earth.

Saint-Exupéry was an aristocrat, a humanist, an adventurer and a wartime flying ace, who crashed in the Sahara desert while attempting to break the speed record for a flight from Paris to Saigon. He poured memories of that experience into Le Petit Prince, which would become the most read and translated book in the French language, cherished by millions of readers of all ages.

The title role is played by Niamh Perry, the young Co Down singer, who was one of the finalists in I'd Do Anything, the television trawl for the cast of the West End production of Oliver!.

But it is the appearance in the credits of the Lloyd Webber name that has caught the public's attention. No, not the lordly composer of Evita, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera et al, but his 32-year-old son, Nicholas, one half of a writing partnership with James D Reid, here embarking on its first full-length musical.

The two met through Lloyd Webber's wife, Charlotte, who was at Edinburgh University with Reid. Refreshingly free of pretension and showbiz baggage, they register very much as a double act, taking the rise of themselves and even finishing each other's sentences. After formulating "a most clever plan" to commission themselves to write a musical, it was Reid who came up with the idea of The Little Prince.

“James knew it much better than I did,” says Lloyd Webber, who started composing when he was 13. “It’s a difficult book, a bit bonkers actually – not really for children. We decided to write one song and if we liked it, we’d do it. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t.

"We used an English translation, but we went right back into the French to try to retain the magic and wonder of the original. The final line, the last and most important secret revealed to the Prince, is sung in French: "l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux– that which is essential is invisible to the eyes."

They share responsibility for music and lyrics, drawing on their collective experience of writing songs, making records, composing film scores, arranging and producing music and directing children’s television. And they acknowledge the influence of the music they heard when they were growing up, from Neil Young to Bowie, the Police, the Beatles and Led Zeppelin.

Reid fondly remembers the folk and classical guitar music played by his late father, an RAF pilot, and the songs his mother used to sing, while Lloyd Webber’s childhood home, unsurprisingly, was filled with the sound of music: “. . . rock, pop and lots of classical stuff”.

Obtaining permission to take on the tantalising challenge of Le Petit Princewas by no means a done deal, as Reid explains: "We went to Paris to meet the executors of the Saint-Exupéry Estate. They get about 400 applications a year from people wanting to adapt the book. We had to handle it very carefully and send them the score and lyrics before going to talk to them. They liked what they heard and allowed us to go ahead."

Lloyd Webber insists that his surname cut little ice when making the approach and goes on to describe how, during the composition period, they found themselves pitched right into the heart of Saint-Exupéry’s world.

“We did most of the work at Charlotte’s family’s house in the south of France, sitting out on the terrace with a guitar and a keyboard.

“There’s a view of the sea and in the distance is a small cluster of islands, which are the Îles d’Or, where Saint-Exupéry is believed to have crashed to his death. His family estate is just around the corner from where we were, so it really was a case of total immersion.”

It was their friend, director Mick Gordon, who is based in London but comes from Belfast, who introduced them to the Lyric’s artistic director, Richard Croxford. Since becoming temporarily resident in the city, they pronounce themselves very much at home, singing the praises of the new building and its state-of-the-art facilities, the creative team under Croxford and the wider community, which has warmly embraced them.

They chose the internationally acclaimed designer Gary McCann to take charge of the visuals, not realising that he grew up in Co Armagh.

McCann has used as references Saint-Exupéry’s charming original illustrations, plus the fact that he was an inveterate doodler, whose cockpits were awash with scraps of paper. The set comprises a crumple of giant blank pages, upon which Ciaran Bagnall’s fantastical light projections create ever-changing, gloriously tinted landscapes and bewitching images. And McCann’s vision is completed by a bevy of dazzling, haute couture-inspired costumes, paraded with terrific pizazz by the excellent ensemble cast.

The overall effect is quite enchanting. Perry emerges as a genuine talent, completely attuned to the far-seeing innocence of the central character and effortlessly carrying the weight of the sweetly hypnotic vocals on her slight shoulders. Norwegian stage and screen actor Kare Conradi exudes a quiet charisma as the troubled Pilot – and all the other male roles. Cassandra Compton is a sultry latino Rose and Laura Pitt Pulford a sexily voracious Snake.

On the minus side, the tricky narrative presents its own navigational difficulties; there are sequences when the absence of on-stage action is barely covered by a nondescript wave of sound; and the plane crash is rather an insipid affair.

Still, the Lyric can take pride in being the first to stage this handsome production and in the shining young faces of the next generation to take The Little Princeto its heart.

The Little Prince

runs until January 15, 2012. Bookings on lyrictheatre.co.uk