Andrew Lloyd Webber Eyes British Sex Scandal as Subject of New Musical

Andrew Lloyd Webber may use a 1963 British sex scandal that toppled the political administration of the day as fodder for his next musical, according to the New York Post.

“It was the first time the British establishment cracked,” said Lloyd Webber, who is a member of the British House of Lords. “Soon after, The Beatles appeared and changed British culture forever.”

John Profumo was the Secretary of State for war under Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. He had an affair with a call girl named Christine Keeler, who was involved with an official at the Soviet Embassy at the same time. Lloyd Webber’s musical will reportedly focus on Stephen Ward, an osteopath who introduced Profumo to Keeler. Ward was accused and tried for pimping out women in the scandal, and though the charges were ultimately dropped, he killed himself soon after the trial.

Lloyd Webber has yet to settle on a bookwriter for the project but Christopher Hampton, with whom he wrote Sunset Boulevard, is reportedly in the running. Lloyd Webber says that, should he decide to go ahead with writing the show, the score will be influenced by music of the time period and include jazz, swing, skiffle and the early rock ’n’ roll.

Lloyd Webber is the composer of Broadway’s longest-running show, The Phantom of the Opera, and his musicals Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita are both being revived on the Rialto this spring. His other shows include Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Aspects of Love, The Woman in White and Song and Dance.