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Why the TINA musical is closing... | Thoughts on the theatre industry and what's next at the Aldwych
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Mickey Jo
Regardless of the fact that it's closing, Tina has had an undeniably impressive run in the West End. To still be around seven years after it opened is a fantastic achievement and everyone who has been responsible for that should be incredibly proud. Mary oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening to this on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a professional theatre critic here on social media. I am also a content creator and a pundit and today we are going to be talking about the new news that Tina the Tina Turner Musical, based on the life of Tina Turner, the late great rock and roll icon and using of course her songbook in order to tell her story, will close later this year in the West End at the Old Witch Theatre, some seven years after it first opened there. Now, there's lots to discuss about this. We're going to talk through the official press release which has been released. It also prompts questions about the exact circumstances of why Tina is closing, because in some ways this is anticipated. But it's also closing prior to the fulfillment the full booking period that had been put on sale. So you know, they had demonstrably been hoping to run just a little bit longer. The show has recently also commenced its first UK tour, running concurrently with the London production. And there are also one or two things that this tells us about the industry right now and where we are, particularly when it comes to jukebox musicals. Finally, we can speculate just a little bit because I haven't heard anything, official, rumor or otherwise, about what might be going into the Old Witch next. I have some things, theories and I'll share some of those with you at the end. In the meantime, let's talk about Tina taking her final bow in London. As always, I would love to know what you thought in the comments section down below. Feel free to share your favorite memories of going to see Tina the Tina Turner Musical. I saw the show twice at the Old Witch and I really enjoyed it. I think it's one of the stronger jukebox biomusicals. I think the role of Tina Turner is one of the most demanding in the world of musical theater right now. I think it's insane, insanely demanding in terms of the physicality and the vocals and the characterization and the acting that is required. It's this really incredible feat. And as always, if you enjoy this and you want to stay up to date with all of the West End and Broadway theatre news, as well as all of my various theater reviews. Make sure that you are subscribed right here on YouTube with the notifications turned on or following me on other social media or podcast platforms. In the meantime, let's talk about it. Why exactly is Tina Ferrari Tina Turner Musical closing in the West End? So let's begin with the official press release. I was actually at the gala performance of the comedy about spies this evening at the Noel Coward Theater. Stay tuned for that review coming very soon. But just shortly before that performance began, this was sent out with the press team having distributed the news. Tina the Tina Turner musical to close in the West End after seven triumphant years and that it's booking at the Old Witch Theatre now only and until Saturday 13th September 2025, when previously I believe that it had been booking into January of the new year. Yeah, back in April when they announced Fleur east joining the cast. And we'll talk a little bit more about that in just a moment because I think it's a little bit revealing they had extended the booking period to the 10th of January 2026. And I often describe the closure of long running shows like this, like anything upwards of three or four years being a long running show, theatrically speaking, as kind of the plane gracefully, like the show for the most part will probably have recouped by this point. They'll have made their money back, it will have been successful. And so, you know, a closure doesn't have to be a sad, sudden, shocking thing. It can be a graceful landing of the plane, keeping the brand intact and making everything look like, you know, the final chapter of a great success. And it's just that, you know, earlier closing than the booking period extension that makes this look a little bit less like, you know, that was the sit and a little bit more like the show kind of ran out of steam. Now I said we'd circle back to talking about the casting of Fleur east, who was recently announced to join the show as one of two actresses to share the role of Tina Turner. It's such a demanding role that that's usually how they do things ever since Adrienne Warren, who originated the role, left the production. But Fleur, who is a popular recording artist through a cynical lens, could have been considered stunt casting, which one could have interpreted as a little bit of a red flag for the show's box office success. As a reminder, we do release weekly box office grosses or any of that kind of information here in the uk. So we can only speculate really about how well a show is doing based on Word of mouth and based on ticket availability. And with that being said, it actually looked a few years ago based on the availability of tickets and the kind of offers that were going around, like Tina might have been slowing down, but then something happened that, you know, sadly but truly afforded them a little bit more life and longevity. And that was the sad passing of Tina Turner. And obviously, you know, that reframed the show in a different context because it then allowed her fans, and there are so many of them, to go to the show and celebrate her life and her artistry and her music in the wake of her death. And with any kind of a biographical piece, I think it's a sad reality that it's going to gain a little bit more interest and popularity and momentum after someone passes away. I'm sure that that happens with written biographies about individuals after they've died. But going back to the stunt casting concept, I don't need to tell you that this is something that we see occasional in struggling shows where they want to put celebrities or people with a little bit of interest or more name recognition into the show to try and get a wider pool of people to go and see it, to buy tickets. Trying to reach out beyond the usual crowd of theater fans, let's say, or the people who have been interested in the show thus far. And we see this on a variety of different levels. And the term stunt casting only really gets utilized when it's people from outside of the theatrical sphere who don't necessarily have that kind of a background or experience necessari. And that's not even that true of Fleur east, nor some of the other actresses who have been hired to play Tina, because there have been a couple, including Caris, including Zoe Burkett, who have come from that recording artist world. And in terms of the stamina that you need and the vocals that you need in order to play Tina, as well as, you know, really understanding her and everything that she went through in a very difficult industry, I think coming from that world actually probably empowered those performances to be terrific. But given the timing of all of this, one narrative does certain seemed to make a lot of sense. And that would be Fleur east being cast in the show, this being announced back in April. She was going to go in for a limited time, see if this, you know, boosted the box office enough that the show looked healthy enough to run into the new year. And perhaps that didn't necessarily happen to the extent that producers wanted, or maybe there are other factors here and they wanted to go out with a bang or Maybe there are completely different factors here involving the theater owners. Sometimes they get to make decisions about the tendencies of different shows and it's not just up to those shows producers. And maybe this casting choice was completely coincidental. This is all only speculative. For something a little bit more concrete, here are some official statements around the show's closure the producers of the hit West End production Tina the Tina Turner Musical, based on the life of legendary artist Tina Turner and produced in association with Tina Turner herself, are announcing the musical's closure in the West End at the Aldwitch Theatre on Saturday the 13th, 2025. We know this already. The musical has been running in the West End for over seven years, making it the longest run show to ever play at the Old Witch Theatre where it has broken all box office records and it is in the top 10 longest running musicals performing in the West End. All very true. Stage Entertainment producer Tali Pelman said. The decision to close our West End production has been extremely difficult. Celebrating and sharing Tina's legacy has meant so much to all of us who have been working on this show over the last decade. We are proud to have fulfilled Tina's dream for the musical, which was to serve not only as a reminder of her work, but as the beating heart of her empowering message, indomitable spirit and an eternal optimism in what is possible. And you know, her story is so remarkable. It certainly does do that. They go on to say, we are grateful to our exceptional authors and creatives, to the many extraordinary women who have played this phenomenal role on the Aldwitch stage, to the cast, musicians, production and backstage teams, and the countless others who have dedicated themselves to the London production over the past 10 years. We are delighted that the show is selling out on tour across the UK and Ireland. Congrats to them and continues to elate audiences in productions across North America, Europe and around the world. In London, this will be a summer of celebration led by our glorious duo of Carys Anderson and Fleur east in our final West End cast and they are truly going out with a bang. Now there are a few more things I want to remark on in response to that, but before I forget to mention it, yes, they have recently launched a tour to run concurrently with the West End production. And you know, this isn't something I've said this a lot recently, but this isn't something that happened really at as far As I recall, 10, 15 years ago, it was only the really successful shows that could run a tour while also running the West End production because if you think about it, if you're going to send the show touring around the uk, all of those regional audiences who might have been traveling up on a coach, on a train, on a day trip to go and see Tina in the West End, they're not going to. They're going to wait until it comes to Milton Keynes or Southampton or Birmingham or a theatre nearer to where they are. Even if it's not completely local to them, it's probably nearer to them than London. So you're really diluting the market to a certain extent. And nowadays, you know, it's not just Tina. We see a lot of shows doing this. Matilda does this, the Book of Mormon does this. Hamilton is so incredibly popular still that the London production continues to do well while you have a tour playing these really extended runs in different major cities, Possibly it's been discovered that there wasn't quite enough of an audience there to sustain simultaneous West End and touring productions of Tina. And maybe the tour going out, you know, and being advanced for many venues ahead of time, many months, months in advance, has, you know, lowered the number of people traveling to London to go and see this show. I also want to give a shout out to my friend Claude, who is in the company of the Tina UK tour. We did a amateur production of Sister act together. She is amazing and I hope that I get to see the tour and see her in it because she's so talented and it's really cool that I know someone who's doing that show. But back to the business of it all. I do want to talk about the other productions of Tina worldwide in comparison with the London production, but it's worth really highlighting that even though we're discussing the show's final, final chapter, it has been hugely successful in the West End. As they said, the longest running production ever at the Old Witch, breaking box office records. Currently in the top 10 longest running musicals in the West End. As mentioned here, Tina the Tina Turner musical opened at the Old Witch Theatre in London's west end in 2018 before a global rollout that brought the show to sold out audiences across the world. The musical has been seen by over 8 million people worldwide. That's a huge number in North America. The Broadway production opened in November 2019 and was nominated for 12 Tony Awards including Best Musical. The North American tour continues to run in its third year and can currently be seen across North American cities. Recently finished touring across Australia where it broke historic box office records at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne and enjoyed sold out seasons in Sydney, in Perth In Brisbane. In Europe, there have been productions at Stagger Operettenhaus in Hamburg, Germany, the Apollo Theatre in Stuttgart, Germany, of course, Tina Turner, very big in Germany, as well as the Beatrix Theatre in Utrecht, Netherlands, and at the Teatro Colosseum in Madrid in Spain. And in February 2026, the musical will open in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Shout out to you, Sao Paulo, Brazil, marking its 11th worldwide first class production. I mean, not every show gets this kind of an international rollout, as they said. So that is another huge success. And of all of these, none of these productions have run as long thus far as the London one. Certainly it didn't last quite as long on Broadway. I do wonder if the Broadway production would have had a little bit of a boost from Tina Turner's passing if it had still been running at that time. There was also the pandemic, pandemic of it all, that made everything a little bit challenging. The London production, having been one of many musicals to be open before that to reopen subsequently and come out successfully the other side. And that in and of itself is also a fact that we still have to talk about because it has semi permanently affected the way that people go out into the world and the demographics of audiences who are willing to travel into London to go to the theater. Not to mention, as we so often do when we're having conversations about show closures, the cost of living crisis, everything getting a little bit more expensive. In many ways, the world is so, you know, it's not everyone's first priority necessarily to go and see a Tina Turner musical. But the thing that I want to really pay attention to here, and I alluded to this previously, I kind of tentatively suggested that the way that we see jukebox musicals in the industry might be shifting a little bit. And, you know, they may not have the same kind of box office guarantee and staying power that they did even a few years ago. And if London seemed like a place where jukebox musicals were a little more likely to thrive than on Broadway, I don't know that it necessarily is anymore. Yes, Tina has run for far longer in the West End than it did on Broadway, but several recent jukebox musical openings haven't really been able to gain a strong foothold. We talked in the last few years about the early closures of Ain't Too Proud and of the Drifter's Girl, and I'm wondering how long MJ is going to run at the intimidatingly large Prince Edward Theatre. Part of wonders if it's not going to have the Same kind of extended life that the other Michael Jackson musical Thriller Live did in the West End. Very different types of shows, very different sizes of theaters. And Michael Jackson as an artist has a very different brand, perception and legacy than Tina Turner. But I do feel as though it's worth noting this slight shift that we seem to be experiencing away from the jukebox musical. Is that happening because more people are getting interested in theatre because of the success of shows like six and people getting excited about original scores? Again, I would love to hope that that is the reason is because audiences are starting to skew a little bit younger after the pandemic. There's annual data around a lot of this, but never quite as comprehensive as I want it to be, because I want to really get into the details here of exactly what we're looking at and exactly what is happening. I also. There is a big part of me that does wish that the West End box office grosses were released, even though that would open a whole can of worms and chaos. But I'm very intrigued as to what other people think here. Let me know in the comments section. Do you think that we are moving away from jukebox musicals just separate to your own opinion about them? Do you think that we are seeing them gradually becoming a little bit less successful? Or is the notion of what makes a show ongoingly successful entirely separate to whether or not it's a jukebox musical? After all, you know, Tina did better in the West End than on Broadway, but something like and Juliet continues to run on Broadway and didn't last as long as people thought that it might in the West End. Finally, with the, um, utmost respect to the company and the crew and the creatives and everyone working at the Old Witch and outside of the Old Witch, on Tina, the Tina Turner musical, let's spend a little moment considering what might be next for this theater. Now, the Old Witch is an interesting West End house. It isn't necessarily considered prime real estate from a geographical perspective. It's out down the end of the Strand, just beyond the Novello and the Savoy Theatre. But it's well situated in terms of tourist footfall and it's never been a home of particularly long runners. It has been a home to musicals. However, the West End has a major problem at the moment that I've mentioned several times, where a lot of shows have opened and then gone on to run for a decent number of years, and there aren't that many venues available for new shows, particularly for musicals, particularly for large musical productions to come to The West End because the Adelphi has been the home to Back to the Future for a few years now. Mean Girls is closing at the Savoy. But when Paddington opens up later this year, you have to imagine that that bear is going to be in that theater for a really long time. Moulin Rouge at the Piccadilly Cabaret at the Kitkat Club. The playhouse used to regularly turn over and now not so much. Even Hadestown opening up at the Lyric Six at the Vaudeville. A lot of theaters that used to have different limited runs, things going in, things going out. Now it's really kind of down to the playhouses to occasionally house musicals. While the bigger musical houses are pretty much just the home of ongoing long running shows. Even Operation Mincemeat taking over from, from the Woman in Black. You know, one long runner leaves, another one arrives. And so the Old Witch coming back into play is really interesting. The theater has a capacity of just over a thousand. It is owned by the American company, the Nederlander Organization, who also own the Dominion Theater in the West End. And they co own the Adelphi along with LW theaters. And with the size of the space and the size of the auditorium, it's not necessarily just small shows that we could be anticipating here. You know, when the Criterion's looking for a new tenant or a theater like the Fortune of the smaller Houses or even like the Garrick, we would tend to look at like transfers from off West End, but something like the Old Witch. This could be a bigger show, which makes it an exciting conversation. Now there's a working theory here because a couple of Andrew Lloyd Webber written musicals have made their world premiere here over the past couple of decades. I think Whistle down the Wind was first produced here. Stephen Ward definitely was. There is the possibility that this is going to be the West End home of of his upcoming musical to be directed by Jamie Lloyd, the Illusionist. I've covered this in previous news recaps and I remarked at the time that there really weren't that many options in terms of theatres where he could open. This show, the Gillian Lynn where he opened Cinderella is now the home of my neighbour Totoro, perhaps for a very long time, because that show is another one that has been very successful. And so it sort of seems like there are really only two options as to where the Illusionist could open. And if the Adelphi still isn't free by late next year, which is when ll, however has suggested the show might begin based on the availability of director Jamie Lloyd, who is a very busy man with his fingers in many different theatrical pies, then it seems like it could be the Old Witch. But that still leaves us a conspicuous amount of time. And, you know, it's interesting that Tina is making the decision to close at the end of the summer and not run into the new year. This seems to indicate that potentially the show doesn't necessarily have the advance to continue on past September, or that there is an exciting and viable new production that's going to come in and be very successful over Christmas, which is a great time for many West End shows. A lot of great business over Christmas and then horrible business in January, which is why you usually see a lot of shows closing in early January, like in the first few days. But with a possibility of perhaps 10 months in the West End available here, I really don't know which shows we could be talking about. I have heard rumors of a show like Kinky Boots coming into the West End after its national tour. And that's a show that sold out the venues on its tour. So, you know, that wouldn't be considered a surprise. Could we see a transfer for a regional musical that really invested in their one month world premiere run, like A Knight's Tale? I think that's definitely trying to find a home somewhere in the West End. Is the Old Witch big enough for that massive production, for jousting on stage, for everything that they do? I don't know. Could we see a quick surprise transfer from a regional or off West End venue? Could we see a return of something like 222, a ghost story that seems to go into all of these vacant houses as soon as there is availability, Just to plug a gap between other shows. The Aldrich is one of the few theaters they haven't yet played in the West End. At this point I can only speculate because I haven't heard anything more solid than that. Could we see a transfer of a Broadway show that had been waiting for its chance to play in London? If the Allusionist is already set to happen here next year, then the window would be finite. So perhaps that's not as attractive to a Broadway show that might be hoping to run for a long time. But something like Some Like It Hot that talks about coming to the West End, even though that talk seems to have gone cold. I've heard rumors of Water for Elephants coming over, but this isn't the theatre that I've heard about it being attached to. Potentially shucked finding a home after its current run at Regent's Park Open Air Theater. You know, the ticket prices are very low right now over in Regent's park, which seems to indicate that they have a future commercial run planned somewhere, that this is really just an enthusiastic tryout for the show. Inevitably, the answer is I do not currently know, but I invite you to speculate along with me in the comments section down below. Which show or shows could we see heading into the Old Witch after Tina closes later this year? And while you're in the comments section, in celebration of the brilliant Tina the Tina Turner musical, why not share your favorite memory of seeing the show? And if you haven't seen the show yet and you weren't particularly interested in it, I'm here to tell you, even as someone who is not always thrilled by a bio jukebox musical, I think this show is really emotionally impactful and the music is so stirring and the central performance, whoever it has been, has always been incredibly impressive to me. I think it's definitely a show that you need to see before it closes in the West End. And now you only have a few months left, so make sure that you get catch it. In the meantime, those are all of my thoughts on the closing of Tina in the West End. Congratulations once again to the companies, the crews, the creatives and everyone else working in and for the production over the last seven years. It's been a really triumphant success at the Old Witch and I wish the show continued success on its UK tour and around the world. Thank you so much for listening to this theatrical news recap. I hope that it's been interesting and I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have have a stagey day for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching Have a Stagey Day. Subscribe.