Elton, Pete. . . Ray?

Since aging rockers have made so prominent a transition to musical theater recently — Elton John working on a couple of musicals, Pete Townshend, you could even include the Andrew Lloyd Webber who started, after all, with Jesus Christ Superstar — it’s about time for someone to take up Ray Davies’s oeuvre. He’s always been oriented toward the musical/revue/“rock opera” genre; over the years, he’s constructed more-or-less fully realized versions of Preservation, Soap Opera, and Schoolboys In Disgrace, but I suspect that Arthur (or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire), or Village Green Preservation Society, or Muswell Hillbillies would provide promising material for that transition.

Better yet: Sleepwalker or Misfits, perhaps forged into one. Let’s do lunch; my people will talk to your people.

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