'West Side Story' is one of the most famous musicals ever to play on a theatrical stage, its recasting of Romeo & Juliet as a story of interracial love against a backdrop of gang violence seems almost tepid to us today, but when it debuted on September 26th 1957, it was seen as a radical piece of musical theatre with themes and language never before seen or heard on a Broadway stage.

Its creators Bernstein, Sondheim, Laurents and Robbins became artistic royalty, although at the same time they were marginalized artists, mistrusted by the American government and even by each other. 

Listen back here as Fionn Davenport tells The Story Of...'West Side Story', one of tension and betrayal: