Bob Dylan is going through something of a career upswing at the moment, with documentaries made about him by high-profile film directors and his new album being raved about like Jesus himself had been getting funky on the harmonica.
But it's good to see that even Bob Dylan is human enough to fail at things. For instance, when Bob Dylan inexplicably decided that the best way for audiences to enjoy his music would be to shoehorn it around a modern dance-based piece of musical theatre about the a boy going to the circus, none of the public agreed with him. The Times They Are A-Changin', for that was the name of the Bob Dylan musical, has been forced to close after less than a month of confusing the smattering of people that bothered to turn up and see it.
If there's one thing more evil than musicals, it's musicals based around a band's back catalogue. Thanks to X Factor buddies Abba and that dreadful – but inexplicably lucrative – Mamma Mia musical, everyone's been getting in on the act. Queen, Rod Stewart, David Hasselhoff, Madness, him out of Talking Heads, even The Proclaimers for all that's holy – they all have musicals based on their work. And Daddy Cool, the Bony M musical, is so dull that its stars have to have it off with each other just to keep themselves interested.
But when Bob Dylan decided that wanted a musical; well, his would be different. After all, he's just as famous as he's ever been – Bob Dylan has a radio show, Bob Dylan has a number one record and Bob Dylan has his own weird views on modern music and when Canada banned Bob Dylan it gave him an edge not seen since he went electric. There was only one thing left for Bob Dylan to do – make a musical featuring modern dance interpretations of his songs, call it The Times They Are A-Changin' and wait for the money to come rolling in.
Except that hasn't happened. Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin' has done an Elton John and closed early, even though it was made by the team who somehow managed to strangle a success out of a Billy Joel musical a few years ago. E! Online reports:
The Times They Are A-Changin', the Broadway musical that belts out the Dylan songbook, will close Nov. 19, after only 28 regular performances, it was announced Wednesday. The flop will cost investors their figurative shirts, either a mere $8.5 million per the optimistic New York Times, or $10 million per the New York Post. The death of The Times They Are A-Changin' followed the classic Broadway script: It opened Oct. 26. It got bad reviews. It couldn't sell any tickets.
Nobody can really say for sure why The Times They Are A-Changin' by Bob Dylan failed, but we think we've got it down to a handful of potential answers; a) Modern dance is rubbish, b) musicals about circuses are rubbish, c) all Bob Dylan songs sound the same and d) the thought of having to sit there and watch a woman doing an improv-jazz dance routine throughout all 237 verses of The Hurricane just because someone shoehorned the line "look Ma, it sure is gettin' windy out there!" into the dialogue fills most right-minded individuals with a blinding attack of uncontrollable rage.
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