In an effort to get out a bit more (and somewhere other than a local drinking establishment), I've just joined a local choir. It's huge - there are over 100 singers - but also great because there's a decent balance of voices to produce a good sound and the director is fantastic. It's been three weeks now, and I'm only now beginning to feel that my voice is actually doing what I'm trying to get it to. I haven't done any choral singing since high school, so bar the odd musical during uni - with very little straight singing - it's been a some time since I really put my vocal chords through their paces.

One of the pieces we're working on is a rather quirky arrangement of some Les Mis songs, that - once you get past the weirdness - is actually quite good. And there were some people struggling a bit with sight-reading certain lyrics, which prompted the director to comment that he was surprised at how many people hadn't seen Les Mis, and that he considered it the best musical written in the C20th after West Side Story.

I'm not disputing that necessarily, because it's a fantastic musical - definitely a firm favourite of mine - but the point is it got me thinking about what makes a good musical, and what makes a popular musical, and whether they aren't actually the same thing. What I mean is that musicals are sort of considered the poor relation to, say, orchestral music; at the same time - in the UK at least - the general public tends to see them as cheesy and a bit naff. They seem to be an acquired taste.

You get cult hits (say, Little Shop of Horrors), and you get musically very complex and worthy stuff that is critically acclaimed but no-one sees (Into the Woods, for example). Then there's G&S which lots of people are fond of but no-one's going to travel to London to see a performance when the local am-dram are most likely putting something on. But then you get phenomena like Phantom, Les Mis and Wicked: all very different musically and in subject and scope. But all (to a greater or lesser extent) appealing even to some who aren't musical geeks.

What is the common denominator here? Or is it just some "X" factor that is totally arbitrary? What's your favourite musical, and just what is it that clinches the deal for you?

Over to you, oh f-list of wisdom :D

(For the record, I don't have a favourite. Or if I do, I'm so fickle that it tends to change so often I'd have a job to pin it down...)