Life comes full Circle for ABBA co-creator Benny Andresson

It’s 41 years since the Swedish band won Eurovision with ’Waterloo’, but, at 68, co-writer Andersson is still diversifying. The composer of musicals Chess and Mamma Mia has just produced a teen horro with his son, writes Helen Barlow

BENNY Andersson is known internationally as one of the creative geniuses behind ABBA, the other being Björn Ulvaeus. But in his native Sweden, he has long been revered for a range of projects. The 68-year-old started out in The Hep Stars, a band known as the ‘Swedish Beatles’, before he achieved worldwide recognition with ABBA’s 1974 Eurovision win. Since then, he has drawn on Swedish musical traditions with his own band, Benny Andersson’s Orkester (BAO!), and has produced the theatrical musicals, Christina, Chess and Mamma Mia! In 2008, the latter, built around 24 ABBA songs, became the most successful movie musical of all time. A cinema lover, Andersson wanted a new challenge and, with his son, Ludvig, and seasoned filmmaker, Cecilia Norman Mardell, has produced a Swedish-language, high-school fantasy thriller, The Circle, starring six young Swedish actresses, three of whom had never acted before.