Which overlooked shows by musical theatre greats would you bring back?

Dying, in the alleged words of Sue Mengers, larger-than-life agent to everyone from Joan Collins to Mike Nichols via Barbra Streisand, was a good career move. She first said it of Elvis Presley, but since she herself died in 2011 she didn’t live to say it of Stephen Sondheim who, aged 91, died two years ago last Sunday.

Since his death, Broadway has been awash with Sondheim productions. Right now, he’s the busiest composer/lyricist around. There’s the premiere of his final show, Here We Are, written with book writer David Ives; a revival of Sweeney Todd; and Maria Friedman’s take on Merrily We Roll Along, which Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez have turned into the hottest ticket in town. And the most expensive: top price is $699 – or £554.

The West End isn’t lagging far behind. The Sondheim compilation Old Friends features a top-flight cast quite brilliantly directed by Julia McKenzie, who has imparted her deep understanding of his work amid expert staging by Matthew Bourne.

Sondheim never liked playing favourites, but he conceded on more than one occasion that Someone in a Tree might be the song of which he was most proud

Meanwhile, previews have begun at the Menier Chocolate Factory for Pacific Overtures.

This is the one that got away. On the back of the reputation of Sondheim and Hal Prince’s collaborations on Company, Follies and A Little Night Music, they took a gamble in 1975 creating a culture-clash show with book writer John Weidman about how 19th-century America attempted to woo and win over Japan. Not exactly typical musical fodder, it closed in five months.

It’s a fascinating, total one-off that precludes standard Broadway casting since it requires an almost all-Asian cast. Yet it contains some of Sondheim’s most compelling work, not least the surprisingly dramatic song Someone in a Tree.

The number – which directly inspired Lin-Manuel Miranda’s The Room Where It Happens – is about the crucial signing of the treaty between Commodore Perry and the representatives of the ruling Shogun, a meeting about which no evidence survives.

In a stroke of brilliance, instead of dramatising that meeting in the room, Sondheim wrote a song about two ordinary people who were observing but didn’t actually see the momentous event: one watching from a tree, another hidden beneath floorboards. It’s imaginative, funny, eloquent and cumulatively exciting. In 2003,

I took playwright Bryony Lavery to see the show. She knew nothing of it but during that number I saw tears rolling down her cheeks. She remembers the scene vividly. Sondheim never liked playing favourites, but he conceded on more than one occasion that this might be the song of which he was most proud.

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