It could be third time lucky for The Last Five Years
Amid the doom and gloom for theatreland recently, stories of success have been all the sweeter.
Such is the case with the musical The Last Five Years, and its remarkable journey over the last 18 months. Back in March 2020, a revival of the poignant two-hander about the breakdown of a relationship played at London’s Southwark Playhouse, winning five-star reviews, but was shut down only a few performances after its press opening.
Then it was one of the first shows to return to live performances last year, only to be shut down a second time. But now, finally, it is back for a hopefully uninterrupted third run – and this time in a big West End theatre, the Garrick.
It’s a trajectory for the show that director Jonathan O’Boyle could simply never have envisaged.
‘When we first started talking about the possibility of doing a production of it back in 2019, I had no idea where we would end up,’ he tells me. ‘The last thing on my mind was the possibility that I would make my West End debut with it.’ In fact, one of the silver linings of this topsy-turvy period in theatre has been the chance that smaller shows have had to play in West End venues before bigger productions have returned to occupy them.
But Jonathan hopes that this may prompt a more permanent change in the West End ecology. ‘I really do hope that this isn’t just an anomaly and that there are spaces for emerging artists in the future [there],’ he says.
‘I think having smaller-scale new work sitting alongside blockbuster shows is good for the industry and good for audiences.’