SHERIDAN Smith’s latest theatre was slammed by critics and sent audience members to sleep.
The award-winning actress is starring in the musical of 1977 film Opening Night, where she plays functioning alcoholic actress Myrtle Gordon.
Despite her incredible reputation in the industry, one theatre buff compared the performance to a “multi-lane pile up”.
It was also branded “tragic” and a “waste of audiences’ time and money”.
Stefan Kyriazis, the Arts Editor for Express said: “As the curtain fell, the poor ladies in front of me muttering, ‘I don’t understand – what just happened?’ echoed the bewildered slump of an audience who sat (some smartly snoozed) through Rufus Wainwright’s tuneless tunes, endless pointless and intrusive camerawork (enough, already), some atrocious acting and frustratingly bad staging.”
According to another critic, “half the audience loved it, the other half hated it”.
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Despite the rough reviews, Sheridan, who has been open about her own mental health battles over the years, was the show’s saving grace.
Her character, Myrtle, suffers a mental breakdown and leans on booze to help her through.
The storyline is close to home for Sheridan, who opened up about her own demons in 2017.
She previously battled anxiety, depression and addiction and said that her “life was falling apart”.
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The death of her beloved father Colin in 2016 only fuelled her crisis, which saw her stumble out of a stage door after her Funny Girl stint at the Menier Chocolate Factory.
There were rumours that she was drunk on stage, but she has always denied this.
She told Sunday Times Culture Magazine: “My life was falling apart and I didn’t tell anyone.
“I was totally terrified that I was going to come unstuck, that I couldn’t hold these feelings of insecurity in much longer without it coming to a head.
“Which it did last year. My dad getting cancer triggered it, but it had been a long time coming.
“Things have been weird for years.”
Sheridan previously said that Opening Night was “like therapy” for her, saying it felt like her life had gone “full circle”.
Of the parallels between her former self and Myrtle, she said: “I am playing an actress but at least I can add a bit of my emotion to it, some true emotion.
“It is very freeing. It has actually been really cathartic, just getting it all out.
“It’s like I am back, doing it, you know? Taking ownership of it.
In the past Sheridan said her anxiety and feelings of insecurity increased the more successful she became, winning rave reviews for her performances on stage and in TV dramas including Cilla and The C Word.
During her career she has received BAFTA and Olivier awards, but despite the glory she hid her mental health issues.
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She said: “All I could imagine was people thinking, ‘You should be grateful. Get over yourself.’
“But when you have that degree of anxiety, you can’t just pull yourself together and you can’t explain it. It just snowballs until it’s out of control.”
