Flicked off: ADC show cancelled after rights fiasco

This week’s ADC late show ‘The Flick’ has been cancelled on extremely short notice following a mix up with Samuel French Ltd. after they realised they had given exclusive rights to the play to the National Theatre, which begins it’s run of the show on the 13th of April. 

The Pulitzer Prize winning  play detailed the lives of underpaid cinema employees and had taken the innovative approach of turning the ADC back to front. Had the play been performed, the audience would have sat on the stage and watched the actors perform in the stalls.

Speaking to TCS, Tom Bevan, the sound designer for the play stated that “Samuel French either didn’t tell us that other theatres already had exclusive rights or just didn’t have it on the record properly. And so they told us they’re really sorry but you’re going to have to cancel the show”. Bevan went on to say “Obviously we applied for rights from them and told them the details of our event. This seems quite unprofessional on their part. Of course mistakes happen but it’s really frustrating after all this time and money that we put in.”

The show had proved incredibly popular amongst students and had sold out every night of it’s run with the exception of Saturday before it was unexpectedly cancelled. The cancellation was extremely sudden, with the cast receiving an email from Samuel French Ltd. insisting they cancelled the show just days before opening night. Members of the production team were promoting ticket sales on Facebook as recently as the 22nd of February.

ADC management was deeply disappointed by the cancellation and when asked for comment gave the following statement: “We are certainly saddened and disappointed with the news too. We had previously been issued with a licence agreement to produce The Flick, however, due to conflicts surrounding a professional production of the show it has become necessary for the rights holders to rescind that agreement and thus we were forced to cancel the production this week. ”

Best of luck to the National Theatre cast, hopefully they can ignore the waves of rage emanating from Cambridge.