Despite a remarkably varied and well-received 2001 Covent Garden Festival, the annual celebration of music and musical theatre is to be wound down. Explaining that this was due to a substantial shortfall in sponsorship, Festival administrator Kenneth Richardson announced that he would rather go out on a high than struggle to produce a truncated version of the Festival next year.

Richardson ran the annual early summer Festival for five years, during which time he was widely admired for his committment to presenting a wide range of international-class music theatre in a wide variety of venues — Gilbert and Sullivan at Bow Street Magistrates Court, for example — and the Festival's closure will leave a gap in London's musical theatre life.

— by Paul Webb Theatrenow