MUST CLOSE SATURDAY
The ominous announcement ‘Must Close Saturday’ too often heralded the demise of British musicals. Looking forward from the vantage point of Lionel Bart’s spectacularly successful Oliver! in 1960, Adrian Wright’s authoritative chronicle of the commercially unsuccessful British musical of the last half a century uncovers a wealth of fascinating material. In the wake of the resurgence that briefly blew through the British musical at the end of the 1950s with verismo works such as Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be and Expresso Bongo, the British musical was shaken by Bart’s adaptation of Dickens, but was quickly left floundering in the face of constant critical complaint and financial failure.
The first book to deal exclusively with British musical flops, Must Close Saturday presents a rolling panorama of the good, the bad and the ugly, reassessing their place in theatrical history. Wright reveals a consistent striving at invention, with subjects including the electric chair, the Holocaust, the Virgin Mary, social inequality and Trade Unionism, sexual problems and murder, as well as biographical treatments of Hollywood stars, French painters, tragic novelists, royalty and the Rector of Stiffkey. Discursive and provoking, Must Close Saturday at last prises open the neglected history of the British flop up to 2016.
REVIEWS
Hugely entertaining ... Flops provide rich subject matter - lovingly explored in Must Close Saturday - and it is easy with the benefit of hindsight to scoff at the bizarre notions that have been set to music: the electric chair; Dr Crippen; Scapa Flow ... the match girls at the Bryant & May factory, Francis Drake ... Christmas crackers ... highwaymen; and Barnado's orphanages. Jeremy Lewis, SPECTATOR
In Adrian Wright's entertaining new book, Must Close Saturday: The Decline and Fall of the British Musical Flop, he charts the British musical from 1960 to 2016; year by year he analyses that season's failed musicals. The book demonstrates how frequently it's the smallest of margins that can determine a musical's success or failure.
Richard Jordan, THE STAGE
If you are a musical theatre nerd Must Close Saturday is a must for your collection.
BRITISHTHEATRE.COM
We have high hopes in recommending Adrian Wright's Must Close Saturday, The Decline and Fall of the British Musical Flop ... Some of the examples are wonderful ... This book is not only written for the general reader, then, but also for the more assiduous researcher. Either way, it should certainly be on all library shelves. I adored it.
THEATRE RECORD
A fascinating and highly detailed book ... this is a 'must buy' for all musical devotees!
HOME CHAT, THE NEWSLETTER OF THE NOEL COWARD SOCIETY
I have been unable to put it down ... an invaluable tome which should be in the library of everyone who claims to enjoy musical theatre.
John Groves, OPERETTA RESEARCH CENTER
