This musical version of the Becket story premiered in London in 1975, but, despite being "lauded as one of the most spectacularly beautiful musicals ever mounted in the West End" (according to the liner notes), it doesn't seem to have enjoyed lasting popularity.  Maybe the public shared the opinion of a friend of mine that musicals and martyrdom don't mix.
 
 

This is short because it's based only on the songs, which aren't the entire substance of the musical, but they're all I have.

Henry tries to persuade Thomas to join him in pursuing peasant wenches in the forest.  They meet a girl named Jennie who plans to rise in the world by becoming Henry's lover.  Henry tells Thomas that he'd rather be remembered as a man of love than for anything else, and they discuss the nature of love.  Henry makes Thomas his chancellor, and they plan ways to improve England.  Meanwhile, Henry falls in love with Jennie, while Eleanor plots to destroy all of them.

Thomas becomes Archbishop of Canterbury but soon runs into conflict with Henry.  He goes to see the Pope, where the cardinals dislike him.  ("Oh nothing at all turns my liver to gall like sincerity.")  Thomas ponders the test before him.  Back in England Henry decides to try to forgive Thomas, who returns, but they still can't agree and Thomas ends up dead.  A grieving Henry promises to fulfill his and Thomas's old dream for England.
 
 

The ancient Greeks made distinctions among three kinds of love: eros (desire), philia (friendship), and agape (love between humans and God).  All three run through this story: eros between Henry and his peasant girlfriend, Jennie; philia between Henry and Thomas; and agape between Thomas and God.  Love is obviously the main theme running through the musical.  Or maybe not quite that obviously; it took me a few listenings before it dawned on me.

 It doesn't show up in the songs, but history seems to have been tweaked a little here and there for dramatic purposes.  According to the summary in the CD case, Theobald, Thomas's predecessor in the see of Canterbury, is killed during a war with France, instead of dying of natural causes.  Eleanor of Aquitaine seems to be portrayed in a rather negative way, plotting against the other main characters.  The thing that bothers me most, though, is Jennie. It's certainly no secret that Henry II was a ladies' man, but I've never been a fan of gratuitious love interests that seem to exist mostly to pad the story.  Of course, without Jennie we wouldn't have the full range of love types portrayed here, so I suppose she does serve some purpose.  I just find the love songs less interesting than the rest.

The songs themselves are, in my opinion, on a par with those in better-known works.  In fact, my mother, who was raised on all the classical musicals, always compares Thomas to Camelot.  I'm especially fond of the rhymes in certain songs, which use more complicated words than we usually hear rhymed.  Inscrutable rhymes with irrefutable, "imagine it" with Plantagenet.  I also have to confess that the cardinals' song always makes me think of "That's Amore."

Speaking of the cardinals, I suspect they owe some inspiration to their counterparts in Anouilh's Becket.  In both cases they seem to funcion as comic relief and, more significantly, both gripe about Becket's sincerity.  Another small connection between the two works is Henry's reference in "A Man of Love" to the king as the captain of the ship of state.  Whether it's a subtle homage or a coincidence, I'm not sure.

Jennie's song "Am I Beautiful?" makes me think of this medieval French poem.