As a new production of the seminal rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar embarks on an Australian tour, lyricist, EGOT winner and cricket-lover Sir Tim Rice talks to Jansson J. Antmann about his extraordinary career, in which he has penned everything from Disney hits to a James Bond theme song and rock operas about Jesus Christ and Eva Perón.

Sir Tim Rice © London Library. Photo supplied

In 1969, a 24-year-old Tim Rice was busily finishing off the first song for a rock opera he was writing with Andrew Lloyd Webber. He knew it would be sung by Judas Iscariot and it should question what Jesus was all about, but as often happens, he was stuck for a rhyme.

“The initial chorus I’d written was: Jesus Christ,...