Elton's Broadway savaging

Showbiz

09:30 28 April 2006

Elton John's £7 million musical has been savaged by critics.

The flamboyant singer is said to be devastated with first night reviews rubbishing his Broadway production 'Lestat'.

One top critic referred to the musical - inspired by author Anne Rice's best-selling 'Vampire Chronicles' books and based on the bloodsucking character played by Tom Cruise in the 1994 film 'Interview With The Vampire' - as "a musical sleeping pill".

Variety magazine's Daivd Rooney wrote: "It seems like the prosaic plot of a gay vampire soap opera that's simultaneously overwrought and coy."

Sir Elton admitted that when he saw the production on its pre-Broadway run in San Franciso, in January, he thought it was rubbish.

But on its opening night on Broadway he said: "It's changed 80 per cent since then - and we've been working non-stop to get it right and we put all the great things from the book back in the musical."

(C) BANG Media International