The West End show of The Full Monty is closing after just five weeks. But why? Reviews have been positive and standing ovations aplenty. Now Simon Beaufoy, who wrote the Sheffield-based comedy, has revealed the naked truth.
A fan of the show set up an online petition begging the company to reconsider and let the steelworkers keep stripping off. One of the signatories was Beaufoy. “I think it’s OK to add my name to this petition,” he wrote. “I wrote the play.”
He clarified that it wasn’t Delfont Mackintosh, the entertainment group that owns the Noël Coward Theatre where the play is on, which chose to close it but the show’s own producers.
Beaufoy went on. “Why would a producer close his own show before it had any chance of finding an audience?” he wrote. “On the other hand, why would a producer never come to see his own show? Perhaps he can answer these questions. I can’t because he hasn’t spoken either to me or the creative team in months.”
He doesn’t name him but he is thought to mean David Pugh, who had put the show on with Dafydd Rogers. Their office declines to comment.
Pugh and Rogers, who were behind the successful Calendar Girls play, are now working on a production of The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Stephen Fry, and have employed John Galliano to design the costumes. Curious decisions all round.
