CLOSING NIGHT

CLOSING NIGHT

People imagine a closing night is all tears and champagne and big speeches. Some of it is. But the truth of it — from inside the company — is a stranger, quieter, more complicated thing than the public would ever guess. And it's not always even a real ending.

Let me set the scene. I'm back in Manchester after the Les Mis tour — that was Manchester, Dublin, Edinburgh — and I'd been offered first cover Raoul and ensemble in The Phantom of the Opera. A happy time for me. My second big contract.

Now I should be clear about something, because people get this wrong about closing nights. This wasn't a full closure. The show wasn't dying. Several of us were leaving and the show was moving on to Edinburgh without us. So it was my personal last night with the Manchester company — not the end of Phantom. That distinction matters, because the show is a machine. It continues without you. It does not stop because you're getting off.

And it is very different from a normal day. I'd forged a lot of good friendships in that production and it was going to be hard saying goodbye. There's this inner voice that starts up — "well, this is it. The last day. This is where it ends." And you've known it for a long time, obviously, it's been in the diary for months. But it still creeps up on you. People going "ooh, two weeks left… then one week left…" and then boom. It's here.

I had a lot of mixed feelings. The majority of it had been brilliant. There are always one or two moments in any contract that spoil part of it — and I'll leave that there, I'm not going to elaborate — but on the whole, a very, very happy time for me. I was ready for progression, ready for a new show. But that's the other thing nobody tells you — you never actually know where you'll be next. You're closing one door with absolutely no guarantee of the next one.

Now — here's where I want to correct something people assume about closing nights. The corpsing. The pranks. The idea that on the last night everyone messes about and tries to make each other laugh on stage.

No. Absolutely not. It is worth more than your life to try that on. We are not in am dram. People have paid good money for those seats. The audience on your closing night has never seen the show before — it's not their last night, it's their only night. They deserve exactly what the people on opening night got.

Now — I'll divert to another show to show you what happens when someone forgets that. Beauty and the Beast. Someone was leaving. He played Salt — as in Salt and Pepper, the cruet characters — and Salt has a big dance break in the middle of Be Our Guest. On this, his last night, Mr Salt decided that instead of his normal choreography, he was going to come on on ballet pointe. With a fan in his hands. And do an entirely new routine he'd made up.

It was hilarious. It genuinely was. But we had big wigs in that night — important people watching — so I dread to think what sort of dressing down he got afterwards. So no. I would never do that.

What you can do — if you know someone really well — is a subtle facial expression. A tiny something only the two of you would clock. But never, ever in sight of the audience. That's the line. The audience never knows it's your last night unless you tell them. The performance is identical.

The curtain call, though — that's where it gets you. I definitely got a lump in my throat. But you stay professional. There are no speeches when someone leaves. Again — this is a machine, it continues without you. You don't stop the show to mark your own exit.

And here's a strange detail the public never thinks about. On a tour, there's a gap between venues — so you don't see anything being struck. You don't watch the set come down. You don't see the thing you've lived inside for months get dismantled. It just… magically arrives at the next venue, fully set up, ready to go. Without you. You leave, and it simply carries on somewhere else.

As for the night itself — honestly, I can't fully remember. I probably went for a drink with a select few and then back to my best friend's flat — he was in the show with me, but he was staying on with the tour. So even my goodbye wasn't really a goodbye. He was carrying on. I was the one stepping off.

And that's the thing about a closing night when you're the one leaving. You carry the memories — always will. But you have to be practical about it. It's nice to have the break. To see what's next. To reflect. The grief, if you want to call it that, is real but it's brief, because the industry doesn't give you long to sit in it. There's always the question of what comes next.

So a closing night isn't really a grand farewell. Not for the person leaving. It's a normal show — performed to a normal standard for an audience who deserve it — with a lump in your throat at the curtain call, a quiet drink with the people you'll miss most, and then the strange reality that the machine rolls on to the next town without you.

You don't get to watch it go. It just goes.

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