Buns N Roses, the cheeky opening number in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cinderella, sets the scene in Belleville, imagined by writer Emerald Fennell as an “aggressively picturesque” place whose supremely buffed citizens keep their dirty laundry out of sight. “We’re so dependent on the tourist trade to fill our cupboards and our coffers,” observe the chorus of the town, before the Queen unveils a grand statue. “Should be a luc-ra-tive att-ract-tion” she predicts in a contented staccato.
But after a troubled run that included umpteen opening night postponements and a shutdown of several weeks amid the Omicron crisis, Lloyd Webber’s latest attraction is to close early, despite London tourism beginning to bounce back from its 2020-21 lows and the West End’s footfall slowly returning towards pre-pandemic levels. Cinderella had been booking until February next year and the announcement on Sunday night of its closure next month came as a surprise to many of the cast and crew, including several actors who had been about to join the company and who expressed their shock on social media.
