How soon is soon enough to see a show again? Prior to its current West End production, Guys and Dolls was previously seen at the National Theatre in 1996 (in a revival of its own 1982 production), so that was a gap of less than nine years. Now Whistle Down the Wind has just returned to the West End, only five years after the original production closed at the Aldwych; and in October, Les Miserables will return to Broadway, just three years since its original run closed there. The gap is clearly closing.
At this rate, musicals like these will simply be in constant rotation through our repertoire, like some old Russian theatre company. Of course, you can never get enough of Guys and Dolls; but can we really say that we need Whistle Down the Wind or Les Mis back just yet?
But even if there was a practical reason to bring Whistle back – the theatre was available after the premature closure of The Woman in White, for a short period before Spamalot arrives in the autumn, and Bill Kenwright’s touring revival makes a pragmatic filler – one suspects a more emotional reason, too: that the composer (and perhaps not coincidentally, theatre owner of the Palace and therefore looking for a tenant) Andrew Lloyd Webber wanted to promote one of his underdog shows. Creative people are always inordinately fond of the runts of their litter: witness Lloyd Webber’s previous attempts to restore Jeeves (his ill-fated Ayckbourn collaboration) to the repertoire a few years ago.
But while Cameron Mackintosh has also, from time to time, sought to re-visit his less successful shows, like The Card and Putting It Together (which has fallen apart each time it’s been done), Les Mis already has a secure place in Broadway history, though in longevity terms, it has been eclipsed by both Cats and The Phantom of the Opera; will bringing it back so soon give it a new lease of life there (as it coincidentally becomes London’s longest-runner in the autumn), or simply prove to be greedy? Time will tell.
