The Stage

West End casualties - theatrical flops of 2008

Published Wednesday 17 December 2008 at 12:50 by Al Senter

Al Senter looks back on some of 2008’s most unsuccessful shows.

In the era of limited seasons in the West End and the seemingly immovable presence of so many West End long-runners, it’s harder than it used to be to spot an old-fashioned flop. In addition, with David Tennant’s pre-indisposition Hamlet and Michael ‘King Midas’ Grandage drawing the crowds to both the Donmar Warehouse and Wyndham’s, London theatre has been remarkably vibrant in 2008. And whatever 2009 has in store for us on the economic front, there is certainly the strongest line-up for years awaiting us in the new year. But what about the shows that are unlikely to figure among the nominations in the current round of awards ceremonies? Is it possible to learn any lessons from the fate of the productions that failed to find sufficient audience in 2008?

Most improbable casualty of the year was Michael Frayn’s Afterlife at the National. The Democracy team of Frayn, actor Roger Allam and director Michael Blakemore was reassembled for a thoughtful rumination on the life and career of theatrical titan, Max Reinhardt. Yet the critics were vitriolic in their dismissal of Blakemore’s beautifully assembled production. Perhaps it was one Johnny Foreigner too many for certain sections of the Critics’ Circle. Perhaps the ephemerality of theatrical achievement, one of the themes of the play, means that Reinhardt is now too obscure a figure to be of much interest to today’s audiences.

Another National production roughed up by the reviewers was Tony Harrison’s Fram. The play was bold, ambitious and full of ideas, given an adroit and ingenious staging by Harrison and his designer, Bob Crowley. But such seriousness of purpose seemed to sail over the heads of most of the critics. Or perhaps there’s a down to earth strain in them that is suspicious of too much lofty abstraction.

It’s always a mystery why the London media continues to go weak at the knees at the merest whiff of Hollywood glamour. Consequently Riflemind at the Trafalgar Studios, written by Andrew Upton, hubby of Oscar-winning Cate Blanchett, and directed by Academy Award laureate Philip Seymour Hoffman, attracted a good deal of attention. Sadly, the play turned out to be a complete dud, a tedious compendium of rock-star cliches. Perhaps a little more scepticism is required for future meetings of Tinseltown and the West End.

Producers of West End musicals continue to be undeterred by the whitening skeletons of previous mishaps. The New London Theatre had the unenviable task of hosting two flops in succession in Gone With the Wind and now Imagine This. There were the usual defiant messages from the shows’ producers, pointing out that the audiences who had turned up had been wildly enthusiastic. One never ceases to wonder at the boundless optimism of producers that seems to blind them to the extraordinary difficulty of making a successful piece of musical theatre. Lessons will be learnt, politicians invariably intone after some public scandal. If only!

At the time of writing, notices have just been posted announcing the premature closure on January 10 of Treasure Island at the Haymarket. Despite Long John Keith Allen’s best efforts, there was not much yo ho ho to be seen on stage and little sign of buried doubloons at the box office.

Yet, in the circle of life that is the West End, there is no shortage of new volunteers setting sail in search of stage profits. Good luck to them all. Without it, we theatre scribes would have to work for a living. Perish the thought.