In conversation
It took Judy Craymer a decade to persuade ABBA to turn their songs into a show. Now Mamma Mia! is celebrating 25 years and there are plans for a third film. Louise Atkinson meets the ultimate dancing queen and film producer
Judy Craymer was 16 when ABBA won the Eurovision song contest back in 1974 – but she was more of a rock chick teenager than a disco queen, preferring T. Rex, Bowie or Led Zeppelin and dreaming of a career as an international show jumper.
It was only after a chance meeting with ABBA’s songwriting duo Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson in the early 1980s that she really listened to the words of their hit Winner Takes It All, and the seeds of an idea for a story inspired by ABBA songs began to take hold.
‘Those lyrics revealed a rollercoaster of love and loss that struck me as extraordinarily theatrical,’ she tells me. ‘I was intrigued by the way two men had written a song that could resonate so powerfully with women – there were so many boyfriends I’d loved to have sung those words to!’
But it would take more than 10 years of dogged persuasion before Benny and Björn finally gave Judy the go-ahead to make what they thought might be a ‘little show’.
Mamma Mia! opened on the West End stage in 1999, 25 years after Waterloo had catapulted the Swedish foursome into pop history. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the musical phenomenon that broke all box office records, having been seen by more than 65m people worldwide in 50 productions running in 16 different languages.
Life is very different now for Judy – the London girl who sold her first flat to bankroll the development of her Mamma Mia! idea, exchanging potential plot ideas with writer Catherine Johnson over a cheese and ham sandwich at Reading Station.
Now one of the most powerful women in the West End, she owns two top-level and highly pampered dressage horses and a share of six National Hunt race horses, and divides her time between a London penthouse and jetting around the world to keep all her various Mamma Mia! plates spinning.
At 66, when many people might be thinking of taking things a little easy, Judy is still the head of the Mamma Mia! family. ‘I’m very much involved and hands on,’ she says. Whether it’s searching out a potential theatre in Mumbai or auditioning new lead roles for Shanghai, she has the final say on every aspect of the Mamma Mia! brand: ‘I’m there to kick ass and I will be the one deciding what cocktails we’ll be serving at the welcome party,’ she adds.
With both Meryl Streep and Cher on speed dial, she’s also currently working on concepts for a third Mamma Mia! film and a biopic with Cher.
TAKE A CHANCE ON ME
Judy complet
