How to Stream Sondheim's Follies - The Lost Archive

While over 150 Broadway productions were filmed to date, a sizeable portion of them has either only managed to reach agreements for very limited releases or got lost forever due to expired distribution rights.

From one-night cinema showings to limited TV airings, our Lost Archive looks at all the shows that spent millions on being professionally filmed - but have been long lost. We detail the history of each production and try to understand the reasoning behind the limited release, and ultimately try to locate the lost recordings.

This week we're looking at the West End revival of Sondheim's Follies:

Follies is perhaps one of the most well-known classic backstage musicals, written by Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman. The show centers around a Broadway theater set for demolition with a rich past of hosting a popular musical revue (based on the Ziegfeld Follies).

The musical follows a reunion of the venue's past showgirls - The Weismann Girls - who visit the theater moments before it's taken down. They reminisce about their past experiences in the theater and perform their old songs often accompanied by their younger selves.

The original Broadway production was directed by Harold Prince (The Phantom of the Opera, Company, Merrily We Roll Along) together with Michael Bennett, opening in April 1971 at Broadway's Winder Garden Theatre.

New York critics had mixed reactions to the musical's premiere. The New York Times' Walter Kerr said: "[the show] is intermissionless and exhausting, an extravaganza that becomes tedious for two simple reasons: Its extravagances have nothing to do with its pebble of a plot; and the plot, which could be wrapped up in approximately two songs, dawdles through 22 before it declares itself done."

Peter De Vries for Time Magazine famously said that "at its worst moments, Follies is mannered and pretentious, overreaching for Significance, and at its best moments—and there are many—it is the most imaginative and original new musical that Broadway has seen in years."

Follies was eventually nominated for 11 Tony Awards, winning seven including Best Original Score. The show lost the prestigious Best Musical award to Two Gentlemen of Verona that year.

While the show was considered a failure on Broadway, closing after just 500 performances and losing its entire investment, it was produced extensively all over the world since.

In 1985, an all-star staged concert of the musical was produced at the Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center for two nights only. Sondheim wanted to give the show a new life by recording the entire score properly after the original Broadway cast had to cut half of the score for budget reasons.

The concert starred Barbara Cook (Sally), George Hearn (Ben), Mandy Patinkin (Buddy), and Lee Remick (Phyllis), with Carol Burnett (Carlotta), Elaine Stritch (Hattie Walker), and Liz Callaway (Young Sally).

The concert was filmed and is available to stream, including backstage footage from staging the show at Lincoln Center. 

Shortly after, Follies premiered in the West End after extensive rewrites by James Goldman and four new songs from Sondheim (Country House, Loveland, Ah But Underneath, and Make the Most of Your Music). 

Producer Cameron Mackintosh demanded an intermission be added to the piece at the time, a change Sondheim did not agree with and decided to allow. The London revival, while still not a huge success, played nearly 600 performances.

Follies was revived four times in total - twice on Broadway and twice in the West End. The 2011 Broadway revival was notable for having a strong cast consisting of Bernadette Peters as Sally, Jan Maxwell as Phyllis, and Elaine Paige as Carlotta.

While managing to play to full capacity during its short Broadway run, neither of these revivals was as successful as the 2017 London production at the National Theatre. 

The London revival played the Olivier Theatre at the National Theatre in August 2017 and had to be extended several times. The show later had a second run in 2019 due to its incredible success.

The production was directed by Dominic Cooke and starred Peter Forbes as Buddy, Imelda Staunton as Sally, Janie Dee as Phyllis, Philip Quast as Ben, and Tracie Bennett as Carlotta.

Unlike the previous revivals, the 2017 production reinstated Sondheim's original plan of a one-act performance. The production was nominated for 10 Laurence Olivier Awards and won 2 including Best Musical Revival.

How to watch West End's "Follies" today?

Follies was broadcast live to cinemas worldwide in November 2017 through the National Theatre Live program.

Inspired by the Metropolitan Opera, National Theatre Live premiered in 2009 with the intention of increasing access to the National Theatre's theater productions, quickly becoming the fastest-growing live theatre streaming program.

The performances are typically filmed live and broadcast simultaneously across Europe, with audiences watching the shows in cinemas having a shared experience with the theater audience.

The National Theatre's first broadcast of Phèdre in June 2009 was seen by over 50,000 people - with subsequent airings reaching nearly 1 million viewers. Today, NTLive reaches more than 10 million people every year.

NTLive often also partners with commercial producers to air West End theatre, with notable examples being The Audience with Helen Mirren, Skylight with Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy, and their first (and only) filmed Broadway show, Of Mice and Men with James Franco and Chris O’Dowd.

Today, NTLive films 8-12 productions each season that are being broadcast to more than 2,500 cinemas in 75 different countries. The broadcasts are only offered for limited-time cinema screenings and were never released on physical media. 

During the global pandemic, NTLive managed to negotiate streaming rights with past filmed productions and released some of their works for free each week through their YouTube channel.

Following months of free streams, the National Theatre launched its own streaming platform - NTatHome - that offers some of its programmings for a monthly fee. 

Popular shows that are available through NTatHome include the West End/Broadway revival of Angels in America, with new productions being added every week.

While the 2017 capture of Follies was not added to the streaming platform as of August 2022, it could make an appearance in the future as more and more productions are being slowly negotiated to enter the platform.

The productions available on the platform are free to browse - keep checking NTatHome for all upcoming shows coming to the platform.