Michael Bruce

Michael Bruce

History

Michael Bruce is a Scottish composer and lyricist who works in TV, film and theatre. He has composed scores and original songs for Warner Bros, Netflix, PBS, Sky Arts, the National Theatre, the Old Vic and theatres in the West End and on Broadway. He was composer-in-residence at the Donmar Warehouse from 2012-2019. His new musical, based on the film The Illusionist, opened in Tokyo in 2021 and his debut musical theatre album Unwritten Songs topped the iTunes vocal chart.

Profile

Michael Bruce
Michael Bruce

Movies

A Scottish Love Scheme
Music
Lily travels to Scotland with her mother and reconnects with Logan, a childhood family friend. Unbeknownst to Lily and Logan, their meddling mothers have come up with a plan to set them up.
National Theatre Live: Much Ado About Nothing
Music
Since the 1930s, the legendary family-run Hotel Messina has been visited by artists, celebrities and royalty.  When the current owner’s daughter falls for a dashing young soldier, the hallways are ringing with the sound of wedding bells.  However, not all the guests are in the mood for love, and a string of deceptions soon surround not only the young couple, but also the steadfastly single Beatrice and Benedick.
Keeping Company with Sondheim
Original Music Composer
Filmed over two years, this new documentary takes an exclusive inside look at Tony-winning director Marianne Elliott’s creative process of bringing a reimagined gender-swapped production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s musical Company to Broadway during the COVID-19 pandemic. Featuring rehearsal and performance footage, plus new interviews with Elliott, Sondheim, Katrina Lenk, Patti LuPone and members of the original 1970 cast, the broadcast tells the story of the show’s Broadway debut in a city on the verge of bankruptcy to its reimagination 50 years later as both Broadway and New York City emerge from one of the greatest crises in contemporary history.
The Nan Movie
Music
Catherine Tate's iconic character Nan hits the big screen as she goes on a wild road trip from London to Ireland with her grandson Jamie to make amends with her estranged sister Nell. Militant vegan arsonists, raucous rugby teams, all night raves and crazed cops on motorbikes all make for a proper day out. An origin story that mixes Nan's present with her past where we finally find out what's made her the cantankerous old bastard she is today.
Romeo & Juliet
Music
An adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy set in modern-day Italy where two young lovers strive to transcend a violent world where Catholic and secular values clash.
National Theatre Live: Hansard
Music
It’s a summer’s morning in 1988 and Tory politician Robin Hesketh has returned home to the idyllic Cotswold house he shares with his wife of 30 years, Diana. But all is not as blissful as it seems. Diana has a stinking hangover, a fox is destroying the garden, and secrets are being dug up all over the place. As the day draws on, what starts as gentle ribbing and the familiar rhythms of marital scrapping quickly turns to blood-sport.
National Theatre Live: Twelfth Night
Music
A ship is wrecked on the rocks. Viola is washed ashore but her twin brother Sebastian is lost. Determined to survive on her own, she steps out to explore a new land. So begins a whirlwind of mistaken identity and unrequited love. The nearby households of Olivia and Orsino are overrun with passion. Even Olivia's upright housekeeper Malvolia is swept up in the madness. Where music is the food of love, and nobody is quite what they seem, anything proves possible.
National Theatre Live: Saint Joan
Original Music Composer
Josie Rourke directs Gemma Arterton as Joan of Arc in Bernard Shaw's electrifying classic. Performed at the Donmar Warehouse, and part of the NT Live series of broadcasts.
National Theatre Live: Les Liaisons Dangereuses
Music
Marquise de Merteuil, former lover of Vicomte de Valmont, incites him to corrupt the innocent Cécile de Volanges before her wedding night, but Valmont has targeted the peerlessly virtuous and beautiful Madame de Tourvel.
National Theatre Live: Man and Superman
Music
Academy Award® nominee Ralph Fiennes (The English Patient, Schindler’s List, Oedipus at the National Theatre) plays Jack Tanner in this exhilarating reinvention of Shaw’s witty, provocative classic. Jack Tanner, celebrated radical thinker and rich bachelor, seems an unlikely choice as guardian to the alluring heiress, Ann. But she takes it in her assured stride and, despite the love of a poet, she decides to marry and tame this dazzling revolutionary. Tanner, appalled by the whiff of domesticity, is tipped off by his chauffeur and flees to Spain, where he is captured by bandits and meets The Devil. An extraordinary dream-debate, heaven versus hell, ensues. Following in hot pursuit, Ann is there when Tanner awakes, as fierce in her certainty as he is in his. A romantic comedy, an epic fairytale, a fiery philosophical debate, Man and Superman asks fundamental questions about how we live.
National Theatre Live: Coriolanus
Music
When an old adversary threatens Rome, the city calls once more on her hero and defender: Coriolanus. But he has enemies at home too. Famine threatens the city, the citizens’ hunger swells to an appetite for change, and on returning from the field Coriolanus must confront the march of realpolitik and the voice of an angry people.
Much Ado About Nothing
Music
Two young lovers, Claudio and Hero, are to be married imminently but the devious scheming of a resentful Prince looks set to thwart the nuptials. Meanwhile, marriage seems inconceivable for reluctant lovers Beatrice and Benedick whose endless witty sparring threatens to keep them apart forever. Directed by Josie Rourke, Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse, Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s great plays and reminds us all of the failings and triumphs of the human condition in our never ending search for perfect love.