The spectacular musical adaption of Disney’s ‘Frozen’ has been the biggest new musical hit of the post-pandemic era, running for three years at the gargantuan, 2,000-seat Theatre Royal Drury Lane.
As well as being a walloping great hit during a difficult time for the industry, it’s also innovated in terms of performance times, its bedtime-friendly 5.30pm starts anticipating other theatres experimenting with the same. It’s also created a daily spectacle in Covent Garden, with hordes of small attendees inevitably all dressed as Elsa, the snow queen heroine of both film and musical.
Soon, however, it’ll be time to let it go. It’s been announced that ‘Frozen’ will extend through one final school summer holidays until September 8 before finally closing: it’ll be goodbye to the musical and its star Samantha Barks, who has played Elsa since the beginning.
It’s the most significant West End closure in some years, though not entirely unexpected. Drury Lane is such a massive theatre that shows tend not to stay there for enormous open-ended runs and three years is definitely ‘a good innings’ especially for a show which probably didn’t attract many adults sans young children. Apparently it was seen by over 2.8 million people.
There’s no obvious successor lined up, and Drury Lane is a tricky space only suited to the biggest of shows. But for now let’s enjoy those eight final months.
‘Frozen’ is at Theatre Royal Drury Lane until Sep 8, book tickets here.
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