Viva Forever Now Playing at the Piccadilly Theatre London
Viva Forever, the Spice Girls musical, received its world premiere on 11 December 2012 at the Piccadilly Theatre and will close June 2013 after only six month run. Amid reports of a £5m loss, producer Judy Craymer – who oversaw a smash hit by staging Mamma Mia – said it cannot continue.
Based on the songs of the Spice Girls, a British pop girl group formed in 1994
The Spice Girls are the most successful girl group of all time, having sold more than 75 million records worldwide their hits catapulted them into the charts with their debut single “Wannabe†in 1996, and their reunion tour in 2007 grossed more than $100 million.
The production open in December 2012, with huge pre-sale on tickets, however the musical was savaged by the critics, who said it was cliched and a christmas turkey. The Daily Mail Quentin Letts added it had the makings of a notable West End flop and also ” It’s as if the thing has a death wish”.
In 2010, Judy Craymer teamed up with Geri Halliwell, Simon Fuller (the one-time manager of the Spice Girls) and Universal Music to start developing a musical entitled Viva Forever!, based on the songs of the Spice Girls. Although the Spice Girls themselves were not to be in the show, they were to influence the show’s cast and production choices in a story which uses their music but bears no relation to their personal story. This approach is similar to that of ABBA’s music in Mamma Mia!, a show which Craymer produced and help turn into a global phenomenon. In August 2010, it was reported that Jennifer Saunders would be writing the script. Saunders had twice previously worked with the group: the first time, appearing in the Comic Relief version of the “Who Do You Think You Are” video, the second, making a cameo appearance in the 1997 feature film, Spice World.
On 26 June 2012, to promote the launch of the show, all five former Spice Girls attended a press conference in London at the St. Pancras Renaissance London Hotel, the location where the group filmed the music video for their breakthrough hit “Wannabe,” sixteen years earlier, to the day.
Plot
The musical is based on a band member named Viva who lives on a houseboat. The story starts when her band gets through to the audition stages of a TV show. The band get through multiple rounds of the auditions, but on the final round, Viva gets through, without her fellow band mates. As Viva follows her dreams, Viva Forever! charts her journey into the world of overnight celebrity and its impact on her mother and the friends she thought she’d have forever.
Goodbye Spice Girls it was fun….
