The Sound of Music

Of course, in the 1970s everyone mocked. So a group of film students from Brighton Polytechnic went along to see it- probably the equivalent of today's young Shoreditch-Laptop Trust-fund-in-waiting types, all ready to deride the film with barbed phrases.
Afterwards they emerged, dazed, into the sunshine of the seafront.
'It is the perfect film', they enthused, 'Just perfect'.
Many years later, I was involved in a heated argument with a normally unheated theatre director who had asked me the name of my favourite musical. 'It's Absolute RUBBISH', he declared. I defended it with just as much vim. I met him some time later: he had just taken his daughters to see it.
'Perfectly brilliant', he admitted. 'Great songs!'.
I think The Sound of Music and Oliver! are both amazing examples of songwriting for musicals. I have always loved these shows, which of course are now vintage, and really not liked Andrew Lloyd Webber's sonic stranglehold on the West End.
I am hunting for a contemporary equivalent to these oldies as we speak.