West End Shows, Gone Too Soon
Published on Thursday 3rd June, 2.38pm, Written by Carrie Dunn
There are petitions circulating the internet, you know.
They’re not your ordinary bog-standard “The Prime Minister must act now on some nebulous concept” arguments. They are demanding that Hair be kept open beyond its new September closing date.
Now, Cameron Mackintosh is a very wealthy man and he didn’t get that way by regularly pouring money into shows that aren’t making him a profit, so I suspect these heartfelt cries from upset theatre fans are doomed to failure. And then I wondered if Hair fans are any more disappointed than other aficionados who have seen their favourite shows zip in and zoom out of the West End in the blink of an eye…
Aneurin Barnard as Melchior in Spring Awakening. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
Spring Awakening: The teenagers might have been out in force on the last night, blocking the roads and dancing in the street around the Aldwych (or was that in Fame?), but in the preceding two months from March to May 2009, the critical acclaim did nothing to sell tickets. Still, at least Iwan Rheon and Aneurin Barnard picked up Olivier Awards for their trouble – and the show itself was declared Best Musical.
Rent: Well, people always SAY Rent did badly in the West End (at the then-jinxed Shaftesbury Theatre, which had its curse lifted by Hairspray), but an 18-month run isn’t that terrible. Maybe London audiences just have a lower threshold for middle-class American whininess than they do on Broadway. (I’m kidding, I’m kidding, I love Rent. Though they should all go and get a job and pay their bills and grow up like the rest of us have to.)
Batboy: Another Shaftesbury under-performer, this tale of a genetically deviant outsider ran for only four months (plus an out-of-town tryout at the West Yorkshire Playhouse) from September 2004 to January 2005. Maybe the prisoner-of-war connotations were too much while war raged in Iraq and Afghanistan… or maybe the theatre is just too far away from the centre of the West End to attract passing trade. Still, the cast included John Barr (credits include Les Miserables, Evita and Aspects of Love) and Tim Driesen (credits include Never Forget, Mamma Mia! and Starlight Express).
The Full Monty: You might have expect this to do brilliantly bearing in mind how popular the film was, but the American musical version ran for just 10 months at the Prince of Wales Theatre, from March to November 2002. Ben Richards, now starring in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, headed the cast in the last leg of its run; and the show made a low-key return to London with a limited run at the New Players Theatre last Christmas.
Too Close To The Sun: Not really.
