THE GREAT GATSBY MUSICAL King’s Head Theatre

There have been many attempts to stage and film F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel about the damned and beautiful decadent rich, endlessly partying in the Roaring Twenties; but none of them, even with actors such as Warren Baxter, Alan Ladd and Robert Redford playing the enigmatic millionaire, has succeeded in doing justice to the original. Tellingly, Buz Luhrmann’s film with Leonardo DiCaprio, which was due too be released this Christmas, has been postponed until summer 2013. Joe Evans’s play, with music and songs, tries hard; but musicals need good plots and The Great Gatsby, much admired for its lyrical prose, and not its plot, is probably too literary ever to succeed off the page.