With a glut of new West End musicals posting closing notices, we ask whether the credit crunch has come home to roost after Theatreland had originally decided to wear its bravest face

Okay, so people in the West End weren’t exactly singing and dancing when the big banks started collapsing – oh wait; no, they probably were come to think of it: that’s their job. Okay, so they weren’t over the moon when British fiscal policy went belly up, but neither, if you remember, were they all down in the doomy-gloomy doldrums. Oliver!, for example, was being billed by all and sundry as the West End’s antidote to the looming recession. A huge success, the show seemed to promise, in its infectious cockney squeak, that maybe life wasn’t that bad after all. 

 
Naturally, a swathe of quick-witted producers wasted no time in closing some rather malodorous turkeys under the banner: “Due to the current financial climate… [blah, blah, blah, blah]“, but how genuine were the performers feeling the proverbial pinch?

Well, the truth might be: ‘rather a lot actually. Ouch! Ooouww! Stop it! Stop that!’ 

Look around, apart from fairly limply received new musicals like Shout!, or the Craig Revel Horwood revival of Sunset Boulevard, some really big shows are winding down.

Spring Awakening won half a gezillion awards in the US. It scooped Tonys left, right and centre and was generally considered to be the greatest musical since bread came all sliced up. Even at the Novello Theatre, the Blair/Frost/Cloughie chameleon Michael Sheen described the London show on Twitter as: “one of the most thrilling and moving experiences I’ve ever had”. 

Blimey.
 
 Our reviewer was rather taken with the show too; check out the Show and Stay Spring Awakening review – rather a handsome chap too, so I’ve heard.

However, the chalk was on the blackboard and the fairly racy teen musical posted early closing notices a couple of weeks back. 

Even the biblically successful Joseph is closing; but then that’s because it’s just run its course rather than anything else. Okay, so, maybe scratch that one of the list, but it’s still makes you think doesn’t it? It’s like a game of Hang Tough: who’s going to be next to plunge to the crash-mat? Phantom of the Opera? Les Miserables? I wouldn’t count on it; I’m not sure anyone will catch old Andrew Lloyd Webber in the queue down the job centre just yet.

Adieu!