Iron Mask slammed shut

A West End musical version of The Man In The Iron Mask is to close following some of the worst reviews in living memory.

The announcement comes just two days after Behind The Iron Mask opened at the Duchess Theatre and 24 hours after critics delivered their verdict.

Starring I'm A Celebrity . . . Get Me Get Out Of Here! contestant Sheila Ferguson, it is a reworking of Alexandre Dumas's story of a prisoner locked up by Louis XIV.

Writing in today's Daily Mail, reviewer David Gillard says: 'The real mystery is how it was ever allowed to totter on to the stage.'

The Guardian summed it up as 'Dumas the dumber' and described the lead character as looking like 'Hannibal Lecter crossed with a Teletubby'.

The Daily Telegraph critic found it 'unendurable' and said of the actor who plays the eponymous hero: 'I suspect Robert Fardell is deeply grateful that he can spend the whole evening hiding behind his iron mask.' In a statement, the producers expressed 'great regret' at the decision to close, blaming the intense competition in London's theatreland.

They added: 'It has been difficult for a new musical to sustain sufficient audience levels and meet its running costs.'

The last performance will be on August 20. The show was the brainchild of Professor John Robinson, an aerospace engineer and budding composer, who came up with the story and wrote the lyrics and music.

He had previously written a musical version of A Tale of Two Cities and is also the author of books such as Structural Matrix Analysis for the Engineer and Integrated Theory of Finite Element Methods.

Behind the Iron Mask is understood to have cost around £500,000 to put on but had been taking barely £1,000 a night at the box office. Only about 200 people attended last night's performance - hardly half the capacity.