Andrew Lloyd Webber at 70: 'He's an enthusiast and a terrific encourager of young talent'

Andrew Lloyd Webber is one of those people who, even when he was young, always seemed older than his years. It is typical of him, for example, that part of his great success is based on his early discovery, as a young composer, of the existence of Grand Rights – the thing that gives you ongoing financial control of your productions. Not many long-haired Sixties radicals, in love with prog rock and musicals, cared much about those. Lloyd Webber did and it made it him rich as well as famous.

Lloyd Webber is an enthusiast… he passionately pursues his obsessions

So it’s not a huge surprise to know that he is celebrating his 70th birthday today – but it is a cause for some celebration. I am marking the occasion by working my way through his epic doorstep of a memoir Unmasked (HarperCollins £20) – hindered not by its prose style (which is jaunty and entertaining) but by the fact that at 500-pages it is too heavy to haul around public transport, where I do most of my reading. And it ends with Phantom of the Opera in 1986, so there is much more to come.

"I meant to cram my memoirs into one book but my verbosity got in the way," he says. That’s true, but it’s also true that the quality I most like about Lloyd Webber has its part to play too. He is an enthusiast. Right from childhood, he passionately pursued his obsessions: churches, Victorian art, architecture, and theatre. The image of the man who now owns the London Palladium building a theatre (made of bricks, note) that aped the revolve of the Palladium itself by incorporating a gramophone turntable into its design and staging epic musical shows within it – is both touching and revealing.

His love for what he does has propelled him through the good times, the bad times, the rows and the wrangles and in the course of it, he has changed the history of musical theatre. And that passion is still there – allied to a relentless, ruthless perfectionism that has never for a moment let him rest on his laurels.

He has been a terrific encourager of young talent… he loves working with them, spurring them on too

I spent a bit of time with him at the end of last year, at the moment when he put Starlight Express back into The Other Palace in a series of workshop performances, to have a go at reshaping and adapting it for the modern stage (It hasn’t aged particularly well). What was striking was how every waking minute seemed to be absorbed in thinking about that show; he drove himself on ferociously trying to get it right.

What was also noticeable, almost endearing, was the way his enthusiasm rubbed off on others. He has been a terrific encourager of young talent within musical theatre. He loves working with young actors and singers, spurring them on too. I suspect he is a harsh critic but he is generous too. His immediate embrace of the genius of Lin-Manuel Miranda and the importance of Hamilton was a marvellous moment of baton-passing from one innovator in the field of the popular musical to another.

It’s this that keeps Lloyd Webber going. He loves what he does. It’s a great quality and one that should be celebrated. Happy Birthday ALW – and many happy returns.