'Lord of the Rings' musical to open in London

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LONDON : A musical version of J.R.R Tolkien's trilogy "The Lord of the Rings" is to open at London's historic Theatre Royal, Drury Lane next year, replacing the current smash hit "The Producers".

The 25 million dollar adaptation - the most expensive musical in history - will have its first night in London on June 19.

The play opened in Toronto, Canada, earlier this year to mixed reviews.

Director Matthew Warchus said of the production, "We have not attempted to pull the novel towards the standard conventions of musical theatre, but rather to expand those conventions so that they will accommodate Tolkien's material.

"As a result, we will be presenting a hybrid of text, physical theatre, music and spectacle never previously seen on this scale.

"To read the novel is to experience the events of Middle Earth in the mind's eye; only in the theatre are we actually plunged into the events as they happen. The environment surrounds us. We participate. We are in Middle Earth."

The curtain will come down on "The Producers", a stage version of the 1968 Mel Brooks film about a scam to make money from a musical flop, in January after more than two years in which West End box office records were smashed.

"The Lord of the Rings", first published in 1954 and 1955, has become one of the most popular works of non-fiction in the 20th century.

It has been translated into a number of languages and spawned three Oscar-winning films, video games and music. AFP/yy

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"Lord of the Rings" musical to close early after bad reviews

OTTAWA, Canada : "The Lord of the Rings," the most expensive musical ever made, will close early amid bad reviews, producers said Wednesday three months after its grand opening.

"If the critics think they don't have power, believe me they do," producer Kevin Wallace told reporters in Toronto. "When you're going to spend 120 dollars (for a ticket), you do need the affirmation."

The show, which cost 25 million US dollars to produce, will close on September 3 in Toronto, he said, but a new version is still planned to start in London in May, 2007.

J.R.R. Tolkien's story follows two Hobbits and a cast of friends on a quest to destroy a ring that would doom them all if it fell into the hands of its creator, the evil disembodied Lord Sauron.

Wallace told AFP in March the musical was born out of "an ill-fated production of 'The Hobbit' in Berlin... (where) they got into trouble with the book and the lyrics and the music."

The mostly British creative team behind "The Lord of the Rings" felt that "The Hobbit's" failure was due to a lack of courage, so they aimed bigger with this production, he said.

"People said: 'Are you crazy? Are you really going to do singing and dancing hobbits?' ... (But) we wanted the piece to be taken very seriously," Wallace said.

Over 1,000 pages from the cult-classic book trilogy, of which more than 200 million copies have been sold, were whittled down into three acts.

A stage with 17 elevators - a paltry innovation compared with the fantastic special effects in Peter Jackson's movie versions, which became smash box office hits, but one that was praised, nonetheless, as a technical wonder - helped create a dozen realms in Middle Earth where huge battles were fought.

Also, Finnish folk band Vartinna and Indian composer A.R. Rahman were recruited to create the music for the saga.

But the reviews were withering. Time magazine said battle scenes were "often pedestrian" and Orcs looked "less like brutal mercenaries than clumsy backup singers" in final scenes, while The Globe and Mail deemed it a "noble failure." AFP/yy