You win some, you lose some. After the long-running success of The Play What I Wrote, the Right Size’s follow-up Ducktastic! has failed to take the town in London, and has announced an early closing of November 19 after a run of just a month from the opening; although some of the critics, myself included, were ‘softened’ up by a pre-matinee lunch, it didn’t stop me declaring that after being fed duck for lunch, I as served a turkey thereafter. How right it turns out I was; but most of my colleagues were considerably kinder, even favourable.
But one I may have been wrong about is the reduced (and I thought, traduced) version of Sweeney Todd that has gone from the tiny Watermill Theatre (where its doubling of cast and musicians was partly a decision born of economic necessity) all the way to Broadway, where it opened last night and early reviews — incuding the all-important New York Times — seem to signal a major reclamation of this enduring masterpiece. Calling it “a thrilling new revival”, Brantley declares that it “burrows into your thoughts with the poisoned seductiveness of a campfire storyteller who knows what really scares you”. Reviewing it in London, though (when it transferred from Newbury to the Trafalgar Studios), I declared that a great show had been comprehensively diminished, and that you see and (more importantly, hear) less of it than you’ve ever done before; but according to the New York critics, it opens up a new way of looking and hearing the show. Since I arrived in New York myself last night, I shall take another look at it myself in the next few days, and will report back….
Other news from Broadway is less good for another West End to Broadway transfer: Adrian Noble’s stage version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang only opened here in April, but it has just been announced that it will close on New Year’s Eve, after a run of just 285 performances and a massive financial loss. According to a story reported in the New York Post today, producer Frank Gero has sent an e-mail to his investors saying that the $15 million show “will close at a complete loss”.
