Mr Stardust

"The wretched boy still hasn't returned," complains his personal assistant, Tee, when the boss is ten minutes late back at the office.

It's a small indulgence for a man whose wealth and position enables him, in his own words, to do pretty well anything he likes.

"I've been given my creative freedom," he announces as he arrives, suitably chastened, back at his desk.

Mackintosh has for years divided his time between Broadway and the West End, supervising some of the most successful musicals of all time. Cats, Miss Saigon, Phantom of the Opera and, of course, Les Misrables, are just a few of them. But just lately, it has been the slightly less glitzy stages of West Yorkshire that have been occupying his attention.

It started last summer. Mackintosh decided to bring one of his touring shows for the first time to Bradford, and he chose the biggest of them all. Les Misrables was a smash at the Alhambra, running for nearly three months and selling out at almost every performance. Its success has meant that Oliver! can follow it into the city this summer and Phantom of the Opera next year.

However, six months after the opening of Les Mis, an even greater triumph occurred nine miles down Leeds Road.

Martin Guerre, a musical by the composers of Les Mis and Miss Saigon, based on a true story of mistaken identity in 16th Century France, had been a modest success in the West End. However, to succeed only modestly, in Mackintosh's book, is to fail.

Neither he nor the composers, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schnberg, felt that the show had achieved its full potential. They wanted to do it all over again.

"We chose the West Yorkshire Playhouse," says Mackintosh. "Two other theatres in England wanted to do it, and I think they would have done if I'd given them the original version. But in Leeds, the interest lay in the fact that the authors were dissatisfied with their own work and wanted to complete the journey."

Jude Kelly, the Playhouse's artistic director, had gone to Mackintosh with her own vision of Martin Guerre.

"She wanted the Playhouse to be the crucible for the show finding its final form. That's what she feels the theatre is there for: to bring authors' work to the boil.

"And if it wasn't for the West Yorkshire Playhouse, I doubt that the show would be as good as it now is. It's something intangible, something to do with the way the place is alive in every nook and cranny, not just with actors and technicians but also with the public."

The Yorkshire production succeeded where the London version had not. Last week, Mackintosh announced that Martin Guerre will, at last, transfer to America - with the Playhouse's name alongside his own, above the title.

"What's the difference this time around? We got it right - simple as that.

"It's tighter and sharper and more emotionally involving than before. It works both as a terrific and quite exciting play, and as a soaring, operatic musical. And that's unusual."

Martin Guerre had already undergone a resurrection. In 1996, Mackintosh had closed it briefly for re-working. He took a good deal of professional flak for daring to have a third crack.

"People forget, though, that this is what most musicals do," he says. "Guys and Dolls went through 12 different versions. West Side Story was originally East Side Story and it was only because of the Puerto Rican riots that they changed the locale.

"And when Oklahoma! opened out of town, the original review was, 'No gals, no gags, no chance'."

Mackintosh himself has, he admits, had his fair share of stinkers. "For eight or nine years I was just a touring manager," he says. "Lots of fabulously terrible shows at the Bradford Alhambra and the Leeds Grand."

The production which in 1976 escalated him to impresario status was one no other producer wanted: a revue celebrating the work of the American songwriter Stephen Sondheim.

He followed it with Cats, his first collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber. "That was the one that gave me my financial freedom and therefore my artistic freedom."

With Martin Guerre finally produced to his satisfaction, Mackintosh, now the wrong side of 50, has turned his attention now to a raft of newer musicals, including another by Sondheim and a revival of Oklahoma!

His continuing requirement for global travel has not diminished his interest in his provincial tours. In particular, he has much praise for the way Bradford received Les Misrables last summer.

"If Les Mis hadn't done as well as it did, I don't think we'd have been able to afford to bring Phantom to Bradford. The Alhambra is the smallest theatre we're playing by far, so we need to play absolutely to capacity for it to be profitable."

The joy of the provinces, he says, is the quality of the audiences. "The period I dread with a show in London or New York is the first nine months, because if it's a real hit the people who come in are the ones who feel they have to see it, because it's the smart thing to do.

"But people who go and see a show in Bradford are going because they want to see it.

"They're what I call normal audiences, and they're the ones I care about.

"After all, my entire career is thanks to normal audiences."

David Behrens

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