The musical issue came up while I was watching and tweeting about the Oliviers last Sunday. There were rather a lot of musical numbers as part of the awards show and it reminded me that I don't like them, which I tweeted.

The lovely @garyhills questioned my dislike. My stock answer to the musical question is that I find the songs either get in the way of the story, or slow it down. Or, when it is entirely sung, I just want them to stop singing the story and tell it instead.

And both of these answers still stand but the conversation got me thinking, am I being unfair to judge musicals having seen so few? Then it hit me. The deep rooted reason I don't like musicals is that I just don't like that type of music.

Music is something I dance to, sing-a-long to and, most crucially, listen to while I'm doing other things. And musical music and songs just aren't what I like to listen to, sing-a-long to or dance to, with probably the exception of Maria from West Side Story which, for some reason, seems to be one of the stock tunes in my head. Although, before I come across as a bit of a hypocrite, I will qualify that last comment by pointing out that I did try to watch West Side Story on telly recently because of my fondness for the song but got bored of all the singing about 20 minutes in and switched over.

So I don't think I'm being unfair. Musicals just aren't for me.

Download 1-10 West Side Story_ Maria