Morning:
13°c
An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
London faces a wave of bus and Tube strikes that could cause chaos for millions of passengers as unions walkout over pay and conditions
More...
Hairspray makes profit in record 29 weeks
By Louise Jury, Evening Standard 25.06.08
On song: Hairspray, starring Michael Ball and Leanne Jones, won four Olivier awards
Look here too
Two Broadway shows have bucked the trend by becoming hits in the West End too.
Hairspray has gone into profit in a record-breaking 29 weeks and Wicked has just notched up box office takings of £50 million to date.
Hairspray, an award-winning story of a cheery, plus-sized anti-racism campaigner, has recouped its entire £3.5million investment less than eight months after opening in the West End.
Wicked, which tells the story of the Wizard Of Oz from the angle of the unfairly maligned green witch, recouped its £7million investment in January.
Word of mouth helped it take only two months longer than the original to go into profit. It has celebrated its 700th performance and 1.5 million people have seen it since its London premiere in September 2006.
The two musicals are the first Broadway imports to have made a profit in the West End in a decade, their producers said today. They are now booking until April. Their success comes after rafts of other imports failed to make their producers any money - sometimes despite rave reviews and decent runs.
Even big hit The Producers is understood not to have quite recouped its money at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane before it closed. It was replaced by the £25 million Lord Of The Rings, which itself will close on July 19 after only one year.
Other US productions that have failed to bowl over British audiences - or at least not enough to balance the books - include the original Little Shop Of Horrors, Crazy For You, Fosse, Rent and The Full Monty. Some, such as The Drowsy Chaperone, closed quickly despite having won major awards and long runs on Broadway.
In addition, there have been home-grown flops such as Gone With The Wind, written and backed by Americans but premiered in the West End with a British cast and crew. It closed this month after only 79 performances.
Hairspray, starring Michael Ball and newcomer Leanne Jones, won four Olivier awards.
Adam Spiegel of Stage Entertainment, which produces the show, said: "We're thrilled with these numbers because you never quite know. It's very, very rare [to recoup your money]. But Hairspray won every single major award it's been up for. It's delighting audiences every night and the show has sold out for months. It's dream-land. It's immensely exciting when your best-case business scenario pays off."
Mr Spiegel said Hairspray and Wicked were very different shows but were both about outsiders who win through ''one's green, one's outsize?'.
Michael McCabe, executive producer of Wicked, said it was a 'fantastic moment' when the show broke even. He said: 'The track record of Broadway musicals recouping in London isn't that great. Wicked is a big, expensive show and was very much considered to be the outsider when it opened two years ago in what was billed the year of musicals [with Spamalot and The Sound Of Music]. You have no idea what to expect.?
Related articles
