Wilde show flops after one night

Read also wrote a musical about Sir Cliff Richard

A West End musical about Oscar Wilde that was written and directed by TV and radio presenter Mike Read has closed after just one night.

Oscar Wilde: The Musical opened on Tuesday at the Shaw Theatre in London, but was pulled on Wednesday.

"After the first night, bookings were low and the reviews were poor," a spokesman for the theatre said.

The show was timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Wilde's birth and was due to run until 21 November.

The role of Wilde was taken by Peter Blake, who also appeared in the ill-fated thriller Money to Burn last year, which closed after two nights at The Venue in Leicester Square.

Benedict Nightingale, The Times theatre critic, wrote of the Wilde musical: "As Oscar himself, Peter Blake is just about OK."

The sound system is being affected by the hefty rumbling of Oscar Wilde turning in his grave Elisabeth Mahoney The Guardian

"Yet it's hard to blame him when he must, for instance, fester in a preposterously impressionistic Reading Jail imagining he's cuddling children... whatever else Wilde was, he wasn't a sentimental prat."

The Guardian was equally scathing: "You begin to wonder whether the sound system is being affected by the hefty rumbling of Oscar Wilde turning in his grave."

And the Daily Telegraph said it was "hard to feel anything other than incredulous contempt".

Earlier this month, another West End show, Murderous Instincts, closed within a few days of opening.

Mike Read presented shows on BBC Radio One, Classic FM and Classic Gold and has written several musicals, including last year's Cliff Richard musical, simply titled Cliff.

The musical, which starred Read himself, had a stint at the West End's Prince of Wales theatre and toured the UK.