The roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd

I often say, emphatically, that I can't stand musical theatre. Even cultured and well-educated friends (yes, I have some) who have raved about Hamilton have me raising a sceptical eyebrow. I don't think I have ever, as an adult, gone to the theatre to watch a musical. There is something so terribly faux, to me, anyway, about that spontaneous bursting into song at critical plot moments. It's simply not my thing.

I say that. But I've been thinking about it recently. When I was a child - and, yes, admittedly we all throw off some childish things when we reach maturity - I adored Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. I'm still pretty much word-perfect. Jacob and sons. Pharoah's dreams. Could it possibly be Benjamin? Yes yes yes! (As an aside, I think Andrew Lloyd-Webber is very easy to disdain if you want to look clever, but, by God, the noble Lord can write a tune. His music will endure, though I fear the disdain will too.)

I am also a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan. I know they are operettas rather than musicals, strictu sensu, but if they'd been written a hundred years later than they were, they'd have been called musicals. I love patter songs. I love the quick-wittedness of the best of G&S, the sharpness, the satirical barbs (as they were then). It's clever and it's, well, musical.

Another aside: Tom Lehrer, the great American satirist whom I revere, paid due respect to Gilbert and Sullivan, but said that, for him, they were inferior to Stephen Sondheim. G&S had to twist words to fit their rhythm ("I know the fights historical"), while Sondheim made words come naturally to his meaning. I'm not expert enough to know if he's right, but it was a persuasive argument.

There is more. When my friend Hugh and I get together, which is lamentably infrequently, we tend to sing towards the end of the night. One of the favourites in our repertoire is I Know Him So Well, by Ulvaeus and Andersson, probably the most underrated songwriting duo of the 20th century. (Hugh sings the Elaine Paige part, I, being Scottish, sing the Barbara Dickson part.) Where does it come from? A musical. That most unlikely musical, Chess. ("Yeah, let's write a two-hour musical about guys playing a board game!")

What did I do this morning, when I crawled out of my pit? I asked Alexa to play me I Dreamed A Dream by Anne Hathaway, which always brings me to tears. She may not have the best voice in the world, but it's pretty decent for an actress, and she emotes. God, how she emotes. I've never seen Les Miserables, and probably never will, though, again, friends have seen productions and say I really must go.

Where does all this leave me? I suppose, if I'm forced at gunpoint to a conclusion, it's that I dislike the form of musicals, but think some of the music within them can be very fine. Some is cheap and sentimental, but I am a sucker for that. Maybe it's the contrarian in me. You couldn't pay me to sit down and watch Oklahoma!, but I'll greedily gobble up Sir Thomas Allen on YouTube singing Oh What A Beautiful Morning at the Last Night of the Proms.

I wonder about my childhood love for Joseph. It is, of course, what I believe is called in the trade a "sung-through" musical, that is, one with little to no spoken dialogue. Just a succession of songs. Maybe that's what made it so much more palatable to me. No awkward links, no clunky "We know a song about this!". And maybe why I take a much more pick'n'mix approach to musicals as an adult. Two, three, four songs? Great. (I love Don't Cry For Me, Argentina, and its counterpart Oh What A Circus.) But I remember watching the film of Evita when it came out and hating it. Fish or fowl, but not both.