Final whistle for Lloyd Webber's Beautiful Game

The curtain is to fall on Andrew Lloyd Webber's latest musical, The Beautiful Game, after just a year because of the tourism slump affecting London's West End.

Box office takings have dropped by about 10 per cent in theatreland as overseas visitors, notably from the United States, stay away amid fears about the foot-and-mouth crisis.

The cast has been told that the production at the Cambridge Theatre will close on September 1.

Lloyd Webber teamed up with comic-turned-lyricist Ben Elton for the drama about a football team, set against the trouble in Northern Ireland in the late 60s. It was acclaimed by reviewers and won the best musical title from the London Critics' Circle.

But it has lost close to £1 million ($3.52 million). Lloyd Webber is is continuing work on his Bollywood musical extravaganza Bombay Dreams.

Lloyd Webber said: "I always knew that to write about Northern Ireland would be difficult for British audiences and I am proud that The Beautiful Game is my first show to win the London Critics' Circle Award.

"Challenges in musical theatre are my lifeblood and always will be. That is why my subjects have varied from Jesus Christ to the wife of an Argentinian dictator, via T.S. Eliot poems, and why I will be presenting next year the Indian musical Bombay Dreams.

"I'm looking forward to the new production of The Beautiful Game that opens in Toronto next autumn prior to moving to New York."

A number of West End shows have closed early in recent months as the box office is strongly dependent on tourist cash.

However, the stage hit My Fair Lady has clocked up a box office advance of £10 million, thought to be a record.

- NZPA