My relationship with the world premiere of The Lord of the Rings has been an uncomfortable one at best. It all started with the initial announcement back in April of 2005, and the necessary changes to any and all documents that I was currently working on for Toronto's tourism board. Everything needed an LOTR mention.

Which would have been simple, but the overseeing production company insisted that we only use their verbiage - which included the word "unmissable".

Unmissable (n): a made-up word describing an extremely long stage production which cost over $27 million dollars to bring to the stage.


Still, I did get to see the show. For free! And the DH and I had a pretty good time, despite a few delays (it was still in previews) and two intermissions. (The current running time is still close to 4 hours.)

But I know the real reason why the show is ending it's run early: the wine gums.

When The Phantom of the Opera had taken over Toronto so many years ago, a big part of the appeal were the mask-shaped wine gums. For LOTR no such shapely snacks were offered, leaving fans wanting.

The mousepads and T-shirts were lovely, but they really don't compare to ring-shaped wine gums, do they?

Obviously the theatre-loving public agrees with me, hence the September 3 closing date. We'll see if the show can make it until then.