West End musical flops

I miss the glory days of the Shaftesbury flops..

Daddy Cool - THE PARROT
The Far Pavilions- beautiful set
Napoleon- stunning design
Lautrec- some beautiful stage images

Lord of the rings was sooooo boring. All that effort and money for no pay off.

Aww I know it was a flop but I actually really enjoyed it.  I wouldn't say I was a huge Spice Girls fan or anything, but I did like some of their music and I thought the show was sweet and quite funny.  The performances of Sally Ann Triplett and Sally Dexter carried the show for me, as most of the cast were relative newbies.  The story wasn't great to be fair, but it entertained me enough for me to go back and see it a second time before it closed.  

Terry Hands' POPPY was an interesting collector's piece but not a roaring success~~~

And I still have the LP!

Didn’t see Daddy Cool, but I remember the others all had gorgeous scenic designs and all seemed to have had a good deal of money thrown at them (Napoleon in particular, with a relatively large orchestra, elaborate set and staging and some impressive choral pieces). Peggy Sue Got Married was there too but I remember that being quite dull rather than bad, and the score was unmemorable (mostly 50s pastiche with a random Steinman song thrown in)...

I personally enjoyed Viva Forever, but always felt the musical numbers were maybe adapted TOO well. Lyrics were changed, orchestrations and tempos were vastly different to the originals, songs and phrases were blended together. Much more so than Mamma Mia. I distinctly remember “2 Become 1” being an exception as it was sung very closely to the original arrangement (albeit as a duet) and the audience loving it and singing along. I’m not saying crowds should be singing along at a musical, but I think that’s what this crowd wanted and had it been more of a shameless jukebox show it would have gone down better.

Viva Forever was absolutely woeful, and I say that as a big fan of Spice Girls and Jennifer Saunders.

I've always had the impression that Saunders is extremely talented but not particularly focused. I think a musical book was just a bit beyond her.

Well on paper Viva Forever should have worked: Judy Craymer producing (Mamma Mia), Jennifer Saunders (prolific script writer), Spice Girls music (100 million records sold) and a strong and able cast. All of the right elements were there... but sometimes it just doesn’t work.

I really don’t think people went expecting the story of the Spice Girls because the girls had done press explaining it wasn’t, the advertising clearly said it was a new musical based on the music of the band and sometimes I think that’s just an easy criticism to throw at the show.

Don’t get me wrong, a biop musical would have been great but the band still aren’t ready to tell us the real story, let alone put it on stage: we only recently found out Mel C was almost kicked out (for telling Victoria to FO at the Brits) and that the rumoured Geri and Mel B thing was real. They’ve told so many stories over the years I’m not sure they know what’s true anymore (like the fact Geri co-wrote Goodbye before she left).

Anyway, my biggest issue with the musical was the book though. It was absolutely dire and a story about a girl ditching her best friends in her quest for fame is basically the exact opposite of Girl Power. Jennifer tried to give every character their own storyline and for a large chunk it focused on the judges instead of the title character, who basically became a footnote. The TV talent show idea was lazy and I never understood why Viva lived on a houseboat in London.

Then there’s the fact the songs lost all spiciness. You had trained theatre performers applying all their training that sucked all of the personality out of them. Half the band were northern and you’ve got performers using the Queen’s English singing songs the audience knew inside out. It just made them sound off.

There were moments that really worked though, like 2 Become 1 being a comedy song between two middle aged people contemplating a bunk up, and the Spanglish version of Viva Forever performed acoustically. I saw the musical a few times over the course of the run and saw Jennifer there too on occasion, and to her credit she kept tinkering with the show trying to improve it (songs were cut, moved around, replaced etc more or less right to the end).

LOTR to this day is still one of my all time theatre highlights. It was immersive, spectacular and creative physical theatre. It was too ambitious in terms of story but I was never bored and it was at times breathtaking (literally at one point). The music was lovely and evoked the setting well.

It also showed up the ridiculousness of London theatre prices. I paid the same amount for LOTR as I did for Drowsy Chaperone. LOTR you could see where you're money went in the set, costumes, cast, effects etc. Drowsy was borderline am dram set and costumes, only about 1hr 40mins long and completely forgettable in every way.

I saw Lotr too and yes the set was quite something but the songs I’d forgotten too by the end and found it boring tbh
Chaperone I loved thought the set was very good definitely not am dram and such a great cast deserved a much longer run love the sound track ... really funny too ... sae a smaller production later upstairs at gatehouse which was really well done on a tiny scale soibhan McCarthy as chaperone was incredible
I think a tour would do pretty well better than these wedding singer etc etc. Tours in my humble opinion