Anyone who knows me will tell you that I love musicals. So I was intrigued to see that Chris Caggiano who teaches musical-theatre history at the Boston Conservatory had compiled an online list of the worst 50 musicals ever.
I have to say from the start that I disagree with about 70% of his list, but it did prompt me to think about shows I consider truly awful. I couldn’t come up with 50 but I did come up with five. I limited my list down to shows I had actually seen, which made it all the more challenging. Let’s face it, amongst musical theatre fans talk of legendary flops and terrible shows is usually not just limited to those we have seen, but by word of mouth from others who were in attendance.
Just to be clear we aren’t talking about musical flops here. Sometimes they are one and the same, but quite often shows come along that are ahead of their time or just needed more work. In London, we are about to get a sample of a re-worked flop, when Carrie opens at the Southwark Playhouse in coming months. No, I’m talking about shows that are just bad. No matter how they are produced they just aren’t good. We’ve all seem at least one.
I also excluded some truly awful shows that have made it as far as concept recordings or that I saw in workshop form. The winner in that category has to be Big Bang – a musical based on Stephen Hawking’s Brief History Of Time.
So this is my list (Not in any order):-
- Desperately Seeking Susan – Strand/Novello Theatre, London
- Always – Victoria Palace, London
- Maddie – Lyric Theatre, London
- Rock Of Ages – Shaftesbury Theatre, London
- Rasputin – State Theatre, Sydney
Don’t worry, I’ll address musical flops very soon, but in the meantime take the time to add your least favourite musicals to the comments boxes below.
