The right mix of music, nostalgia and romance

This week, JEFFREY DAVIES looks back at another of his favourite interviewees, the producer Judy Craymer who created the global-hit Abba-inspired musical Mamma Mia! He chatted to her in 2016

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SOPHIE’S quest to discover the father she’s never known brings her mother face to face with three men from her distant romantic past on the eve of a wedding they'll never forget.

Set on a Greek island paradise, Mamma Mia!, described as the sunniest of all musicals is ‘the story of love, friendship and identity, and all told movingly and somewhat cleverly through the memorable singalong songs of Swedish pop-sensations and 1974 Eurovision Song Contest winners Abba: Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn and Anni-Frid.

I caught up with Mamma Mia's creator and producer, London-born Judy Craymer, inset right, ahead of the globally celebrated show's arrival at the Bristol Hippodrome in 2016...

TO date, the ‘irresistibly funny stage show’ which has thrilled audiences around the world since it began in London in 1999, has been seen’ by a 54 million people in 49 productions and in 16 different languages.

It is one of only five musicals to have run for more than 10 years in both the West End and on Broadway, and if that’s not enough to be going on with, further accolades have followed, including Mamma Mia! becoming the first Western musical to be staged in Mandarin in China.

Meanwhile, its big screen incarnation starring Hollywood giants Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan became the highest grossing live action musical film of all time with a staggering one in four households in this country owning the DVD, making it the biggest-selling DVD ever. A proverbial double-whammy if ever there was one.

The vision of its producer Judy Craymer who originated it in 1996, and written by highly acclaimed Bristol writer Catherine Johnson, Mamma Mia! features the music and lyrics of Benny Andessen and Bjorn Ulvaeus and includes many of the hits such as Dancing Queen, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!, Super Trouper, Chiquitita, Voulez-Vous, The Name of the Game, Money Money Money, Knowing Me, Knowing You and the poignant and beautiful Winner Takes It All.