"Trippini complained some years ago that West End musicals were based on "formulas which have proved capable of attracting a steady flow of ... customers". There seems little danger of anyone taking Too Close to the Sun for one of these."
"So before the year is even close to being over the West End Whingers can award their ?2009 award for an outstanding display of spunk? to the cast of the Ernest Hemingway musical Too Close To The"
Most of the broadsheets post their online editions late in the day so that subscribers can have content a bit early. Critics/editors may also be holding reviews for Monday.
They quoted copiously from our blogs (which is rather exciting!) but got both the addresses totally wrong through laziness, so I phoned up and got them fixed. FAME AT LAST, etc
'At the climax of this implausible and unnecessary musical about the last days of Ernest Hemingway his wife, Mary, sings: "Writers are best met through their books." It's the one true sentiment in an evening that almost defies belief. Who, after all, would want to see a musical about Hemingway when they could stay home and read The Sun Also Rises or A Farewell to Arms?'
The trouble is it's not even fun guessing whether the show will get pans. I suspect most reviewers will be too indifferent/ exhausted to come up with anything hilarious.
Perfect quote from The stage review -**But if the quality of the writing is such that the show should never have got beyond a workshop, what is amazing is that serious theatre professionals (including an Oliver award winning lighting designer) should ever have collected around it to bring it to the stage, or that a West End theatre owner should have given it houseroom. It may simply be one of those summer aberrations, booked only for a limited, ?filler? run at the Comedy, but it nevertheless devalues the currency and climate of the West End to have allowed it there at all.**