New Musicals Suffer Festival Blow???

After the closure of the Bridewell Theatre, London’s “new musical laboratory, at the end of last year (See News, 24 Nov 2004), it doesn’t bode well for new musical theatre in the UK that a festival organised to look at just that has been cancelled due to a loss of funding. The London New Musical Festival was scheduled for next weekend, 5 to 7 August 2005, with a full programme of ten new musicals, works in progress, workshops and panel discussions. Amongst the experts due to take part were Jeremy Sams , Julia McKenzie, David Kernan , Mary Hammond and Whatsonstage.com’s own Mark Shenton while actors Clive Rowe and Eliza Lumley were signed up to join a 15-strong company of student actors. It sounded like a great event. What a shame.