ALW's Cinderella - Gillian Lynne / U.K. Tour (rumour)

I don't think this news really should come as much of a surprise to anyone. Subjective elements aside as to the quality of the show (personally I didn't like it but there's plenty of stuff I don't like that does really well), the show has had issues from its inception...from the weird now-ditched scrotum poster to the recent tinkering that had more than a little 'deckchairs on the Titanic' whiff about it. And we've known for some time that the audiences have been papered and the remaining tickets heavily discounted.

What also isn't a surprise, but which is nonetheless infuriating to read, is how the current and future casts have been treated. Did the takeover casts even get paid for those rehearsals? If they didn't, which would be a common situation, then the producers let them do this for no money knowing the show was going to close (thus meaning they would have foregone other opportunities they could have been paid for) and then didn't even bother to tell them. Totally normal behaviour from Really Useless, but nonetheless inexcusable, especially in the 2020s and a good 30 years after ALW stopped being the be-all-and-end-all of West End theatre.

If this even makes it to NYC then it's going to need more than just a change of creative team (this is what you get when you hire third-tier creatives for a major musical) but also a good amount of rewriting and at this point I doubt ALW will even bother.

RUG has never been good with PR or announcements and, as we all know, has a very chequered history on this. But even in light of that, his current second-in-command at RUG seems particular inept. 

Well, ALW is going to be off Bonnie Langford's Christmas card list — her niece meant to be going into the show, and her daughter is working FOH there.

One thing I want to mention as well is that the FOH team the Gillian Lynne are all some of the most genuinely lovely I've met in a theatre, I get into a friendly conversation about one thing or another with at least one of them every time I go!

I feel genuinely terrible for them that they'll also be out of work now, something that's being a bit overlooked.

And yet instead they have caused more damage rather than controlling anything!

No-one in their right mind could think this will be anything other than an excruciatingly embarrassing flop on Broadway, and anyone who has any compassion for how the current and incoming casts and crew have been treated will hopefully not be giving ALW a penny for its remaining time here either and will be getting any tickets they want to support the cast through other means.

A reminder of when Love Never Dies flopped, ALW promised a bigger, better and revamped new production to open on Broadway within a year. It turned out that by Broadway he meant "Australia" and by bigger, better and revamped he meant "reordering the songs". Oh and by open within a year, he meant "open to mixed reviews, then close at a sizable loss, within 18 months".

The same ALW that had promised and heavily promoted (then was given a reality check) having a "record breaking simultaneous world premiere" of said show in London, New York and Shanghai.

This is not going to open on Broadway. Investors will want to see balance sheets. They'll want guarantees.

I repeat, this will not make it to Broadway. Just look at the history. It's hubris, pride and the common line put out by producers when a show closes much earlier than anticipated. But especially ALW.

"The Lord of the Rings", "Next to Normal", "If/Then" are on a list a mile long of shows which are announced as transferring after a retool/reimagining in a major new production. It hardly ever happens generally, but it's even less common after the show bombs in quite the way Cinderella has done.

Just seems ludicrous. Strallen had a wig fitting literally on 29th April. Why continue to invoke additional costs if they were going to announce it was closing just a couple of days later? From Strallen's Instagram, it seems that agents were emailed on a Sunday... on a bank holiday weekend... to tell them that the offers they had given had been revoked. Interestingly, perhaps thinking of her future, both Summer Strallen and Bebe (her cousin who works front of house,) defend ALW in the video and blame the company exclusive, separating ALW and RUG. I mean, I don't know how these things work, but surely ALW has the "power" to do things differently?

Only thing I would say, is that in the video, this Bebe lady says that it was the front of house and box office staff who noticed something is wrong as tickets had been removed from sale and that it was due to them questioning the situation that they were told... so I guess it's somewhat feasible that maybe they were hoping to wait until Tuesday to announce, but their hands were forced because of their own incompetence?

Her cousin also made the point that it seemed like there was rumors circulating yesterday and that this was a leak that went viral that they tried to get a handle on.

Also I appreciated that they didn't lay all of this on ALW.  I doubt highly he's involved in every aspect of these things, particularly when it comes to day to day operations.  It's just easier for people to criticize him than some random unknown executive at RUG

I was in an amateur production of Hairspray with Chrissie when she was just 14 - we all knew she was someone special then. Have loved seeing her career flourish since then, she was incredible in Once On This Island and I shall be seeing her in Lift at Southwark Playhouse. Gutted for her, and the other existing/new cast, crew and FOH who have been treated diabolically.

Story in the daily fail now. What an utter mess. If anything good comes out of it all I hope it leads to some change in how this sort of thing is handled and cast/crew are treated, but I won't hold my breath.

I agree, but to be fair to RUG and ALW, it genuinely sounds like it wasn't supposed to happen like this. From the Strallen live stream, it really does sound like there were rumours which developed quickly, followed by front of house staff realising that tickets had been taken off sale, which prompted them to then exacerbate the rumours by asking questions (which no on can blame them for, obviously!)

It really does sound like RUG's hands were forced and that they tried to do the "right thing" by making the announcement over the bank holiday weekend before the rumours got out of hand. West End Wilma also commented that the cast looked really upset during the Saturday matinee (which makes sense, given that at this point, rumours were heavily circulating back stage.) It really does sound like they were going to wait until after the bank holiday weekend to do this, but had no choice but to do it this way. The alternative, them staying silent, would have been worse, no? 

Of course, none of this makes it right/takes the pain felt by so many, especially those making their debuts, away, but it really doesn't sound as callous as it initially did. 

When it's a Sunday and a bank holiday weekend, it is. Besides, speaking to cast members one at a time would have been significantly worse, as rumours then circulate more. If, of course, this is what happened (rumours circulate, their hands were forced,) then to be perfectly honest, they did the best they could given the utterly crap position everyone was in. 

Of course, their incompetence didn't help: why would they remove tickets from sale, for example? Surely that was going to be a huge red flag for everyone involved?