Corrie Musical bosses cancel show due to its 'popularity'

Apparently the Corrie musical Street of Dreams is just ‘so popular’ and ‘such a success’ it has been pulled from a planned tour. This is what the company behind it have implied in a baffling, insulting to their audiences intelligence, statement.

Street of Dreams’ PR department spent a few hours coming up with a statement full of spin which read:

“Following the world premiere in Manchester of Street of Dreams, the new musical event celebrating Coronation Street that received standing ovations last week, Reckless Entertainment, the show’s producers, are now keen to revisit the production and further develop ideas for the UK tour.”

This is possibly a first for a show which has seemingly proved to be such an instant hit with audiences that rather than the usual system of adding tour dates the overnight smash has been dropped entirely from its forthcoming tour.

“The existing dates have been re-arranged. New tour dates for Dublin, Belfast and Newcastle will be announced very soon. The producers would like to apologise to those who have already bought a ticket for the original tour dates and ask that they contact the venue directly.” Reckless Entertainment added.

This is the second time the tour has been postponed; the Manchester premiere was put back by two months earlier this year. While the company may want to make out the recent dates at Manchester Arena were so popular its lead to this unexpected ‘improvement drive’ the reality is many who attended felt they received poor value for money and a show which made little sense.
The lead letter in last nights Manchester Evening News, by Linda Weisgard, summed up the view of many who attended the musical:

“I am an avid follower of Coronation Street and have been all along.  I went with my husband for the premiere of Street of Dreams and quite frankly thought it was nothing short of very poor and certainly did not compare with a production some 18 months ago at the Lowry”
“Firstly, the scriptwriting was pathetic, and the setting not much better.  The acoustics were dreadful and the music drowned out the words being sung”.
“The venue, Manchester Arena, is a large barn and not the correct setting for what should be a tribute”.
“Sorry Katy Cavanagh, aka Julie in the Street, your part in the narration was very poor, and quite frankly we know that you are a much better actress than what came across”.
“There were one or two high spots, namely Hilda and Stan Ogden, and some of the scenes with Elsie Tanner were quite good, but all in all it was a large let-down”.

ATV Today readers views of the production can be found in our comment areas here and here.
[Written by Neil Lang]