Lord Lloyd Webber lives with his wife Madeleine at Sydmonton Court on Watership Down in Hampshire. He has composed the scores of some of the world’s most famous musicals, from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in 1969 to Cinderella in 2021, and is one of the select group of artists with EGOT status, having received Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards. When Sunset Boulevard joined School of Rock, Cats and Phantom of the Opera he equalled Rodgers and Hammerstein’s record of four shows running simultaneously on Broadway. As someone passionate about musical education and diversity in the arts, he set up The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation to provide performing arts scholarships, and supports the Music In Secondary School Trust. Mojito travels all over the globe with Andrew, and enjoys his visits to London’s Theatreland.
When it was time to choose a dog I took a leaf out of Glenn Close’s book as she has a lovely little Havanese called Pip, whom I’ve known for ages. We do an on-stage Q&A in New York together and Pip is always part of that, sitting in her own chair. Glenn’s even taken her onto the stage of Sunset Boulevard on Broadway.
That’s the thing with Havanese, they can’t be alone for a second so one takes them everywhere. Provided Mojito has somebody with him, he’s always happy. You can’t just say I’m going out for the night and put him in the bedroom. He would fret completely.
I’m a cat man really - Mojito’s my first dog. He’s the most adorable and adaptable little fellow. At Sydmonton he’s a country dog and runs around wherever he wants. He goes all over the garden and has a marvellous time down by the lake. He’s not a lapdog at all. In fact, he thinks he’s a hunter. When he rushes out looking for hares, they literally run circles around him. They think it’s a great game because they know he can’t get them. But he has a good go. He’s quite fast.
If I’ve got him in London, he’s quite happy coming around everywhere with me. We’ve completely rebuilt The Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. I spared him the building site with its 200 workmen on site while that was going on, but he adores going to the office and saying hello to everybody, and then he just goes and curls up. I could take him anywhere, and I do. He loves meeting other dogs and there isn’t any aggressive side to him at all.
Mojito wouldn’t have got far in our hunt for the perfect dog to play Toto in The Wizard of Oz. Being fully black, he doesn’t look how Toto’s supposed to look. I suppose if you had a white Havanese you could probably get away with it.
If he’s with me while I’m working, he’ll be the first to hear my compositions. He enjoyed us recording Cinderella in lockdown. He seems to know and sits as good as gold if that’s what we’re doing. But if I’m in a meeting and he feels that it’s going on too long, he’ll start to growl and then he’ll bark and then the meeting has to stop. He just decides it’s time to have a little game. There’s a lot of music in the house, but I don’t think one could say he’s musical.
In another world, Cats would have been a musical about cats and dogs. T.S. Eliot originally intended to write a book about them both, and The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles is the survivor of that original idea. We unearthed a poem that wasn’t published for the musical. It was the first poem for the book about dogs and cats, but Eliot abandoned it and only made the book about cats in the end.
Mojito likes cats too, especially if they play with him. He particularly likes the ones he can have some fun with. We have two Turkish Van cats, Fez and Oddy, which are the ones that swim. I can’t say there’s a lot of swimming for them at the moment, but they’re quite strong cats. They stand up to dogs and, truth be told, Mojito’s quite frightened of them. He definitely doesn’t sleep with them; he comes up to bed with us. He likes to be on the pillow between us if possible.
He sits with us at dinner. He likes his own chair, and puts his head on the table. He likes barstools because they can get him up to the proper height. He’s very particular about food. He won’t eat just anything that’s given to him except as a last resort. He likes to have whatever we’re having. He won’t eat in the mornings, much prefers it at human dinner time. Madeleine has had dogs all her life, and she says she’s never known anything like a Havanese.
He hates baskets and prefers to put himself somewhere where he can see what’s going on. That’s a characteristic of Havaneses apparently. They love going upstairs and looking downwards out of a window. When he goes out he’ll always try to find a vantage point to look down from. If he goes to a strange house he’ll run in and do a complete circuit of the house. He comes back again when he knows what the geography is.
He has amazing hearing and can tell if somebody is about to arrive two minutes before I can. I don’t know if he’s got a sixth sense but he certainly anticipates a lot. He’s very bright and we’ve taught him a few tricks. He’s athletic, so he’ll jump across things and chase around chairs.
I’m a passionate collector of Pre-Raphaelite paintings and there’s a very good one of a dog by Frederick Sandys. It’s rather sweet, but I’m not sure I would actually have Mojito painted. If I did it would have to be by someone exceptional.
Mojito has a very good vocabulary. I talk to him a lot because he understands. I’m not sure I consciously talk to him in an embarrassing special dog voice, but I probably do. He knows everybody’s names. If I say go and wake somebody up–Bella, our daughter, for example, when she’s staying with us – he goes straight off to her bedroom and jumps on her.
Madeleine won’t let Mojito go near the stud operation at Sydmonton. The mares and foals are way too valuable. Also we don’t want him getting kicked.
He’s very good with people and everybody loves him. He knows all the family, of course, but he’s quite particular in terms of getting to know people. He likes my theatre group team a lot, but if he doesn’t know people he’ll have a good bark. He’s always happy with any one of the kids. He even makes them come home a bit more, which I love.
Mojito’s got a passport. He’s been to Mallorca often as we’ve got a house there. Normally we like to try and spend a bit of the winter in Barbados because it’s a good time for me to write. Even though he’s Cuban he finds it rather hot there, so we have to keep him clipped short. I get so caught up with other things that I find writing music is actually much easier when I’m away. Of course Mojito must come too.
I’d definitely feel different if he wasn’t here, as without him the place seems very empty. You just couldn’t find a better companion, or a more lovely person, to have around.
Top Dogs: A British Love Affair, by Georgina Montagu with photography by Dylan Thomas, published by Triglyph Books, is out now.
