Desperate: How a disaster was born
In recent years theatre has sought assistance from a pair of popular art forms. Shows based either on movies, or on pop groups' back catalogues, have become mainstays of the theatrical economy. So the latest musical to open in the West End has the whiff of boardroom cynicism. What happens when you randomly select a famous film and an iconic songbook, yoke them together and shove them out in front of the footlig…