Kitty April 19th, 2024
Starring Sheridan Smith with direction from Ivo Van Hove and a score by Rufus Wainwright, Opening Night began performances in March. Despite this starry cast and creative team and receiving four-star reviews from the critics, audiences have largely stayed away.
Citing the larger cost of living crisis, producers Wessex Grove posted the following message today; "In a challenging financial landscape, Opening Night was always a risk and, while the production may not have had the life we had hoped for, we feel immensely proud of the risk we took and of this extraordinary production."
Based on John Cassavetes's 1977 film of the same name, Opening Night follows a lead actress struggling with alcoholism and other issues as she opens a big new play. When a fan is killed following her car one evening after she leaves the theatre, she is plunged further into darkness as she attempts to make sense of her situation.
Now showing until May 18th, there is still time to see Opening Night for yourself!
BOOK FROM 24 HERE
Reviews
"It's a weird, wry, very human vehicle for a superb group of actors to tell a story that looks like it's going to be an archetypal fable about a doomed star, but thrillingly pulls away from that, as Myrtle literally changes the script of her life and 'Opening Night' drifts into a euphoric final fantasia."
Time Out
"Sheridan Smith captivates, if the songs don't quite, in Ivo van Hove and Rufus Wainwright's new musical"
The Observer
"What an extraordinary theatrical mash-up Opening Night is. It's almost as if this studiously obtuse new musical which opened in the West End last night was designed to sabotage its fabulous leading lady, Sheridan Smith. And yet, if you can't keep a good woman down, you've got no chance whatsoever against Smith's unstoppable charisma".
Daily Mail
an extravagantly original production, every bit as eccentric as the film but also its own alchemical creation, more vivacious in this musical incarnation
The Guardian
