In 1937 when the J R R Tolkien began to write The Lord of the Rings, India was still ruled by Britain. He would not have thought that his epic fantasy would one day be transformed into a West End musical by a musician from Chennai. On Tuesday when A R Rahman stepped on to the stage of Theatre Royal, the audience applauded him with great affection.

In the truly cosmopolitan London where every third person comes from an ethnic minority, the theatre world of West End still remains an oasis of Britishness. So until a few years ago, it would have been inconceivable for an Indian composer to dream of being where Rahman stood.

Rahman told The Indian Express that for him this was “unforgettable experience and opportunity”.

From the beginning, producer Kevin Wallace was convinced that the sound of the fictional realm of the Middle-earth has to be “a unique sound” and to create this sound in this most expansive musical, £25 million (Rs 200 crore), he placed his trust in Bollywood’s top composer.

Converting a 1,000-page classic into a three-hour stage narrative wasn’t possible without abandoning some of the essential elements. Said director Matthew Warchus: “It’s designed to be a hybrid of text, physical theatre, music and spectacle never previously seen on this scale. To read the novel is to experience the events of Middle-earth in the mind’s eye; only in the theatre are we actually plunged into the events as they happen. The environment surrounds us. We participate. We are in Middle-earth.”

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