Crawford's vampire musical bites the dust on Broadway with debts of £7.5m

The British entertainer and comic Michael Crawford was pondering the disaster of his latest theatrical venture on Broadway yesterday.

Dance of the Vampires, a lavish musical ridiculed by many critics, is to close on 25 January, having failed to draw adequate audiences.

The decision to close after 56 regular performances, which followed an extended run of previews in the autumn, will be remembered as one of Broadway's most spectacular – and costly – fiascos in years. It cost $15m (£9.4m) to mount and will land its producers with debts of about $12m (£7.5m).

Crawford, who played Frank Spencer in the Seventies television showSome Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em, must be surprised at the setback. He won the hearts of American audiences with the transfer of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera to Broadway. But now he appears to have lost them.

Ticket receipts last week – admittedly in a post-holiday period when all box office numbers slide – were $460,000 (£287,000) not enough to cover costs. The show was filling about 60 per cent of the seats at the Minskoff Theatre, many of which were sold at a heavy discount.

Producers took unusual steps to bolster audiences, which included an extravagant $300,000 (£187,000) television advertising campaign in the New York area. But the publicity blitz – a bid to overcome the impact of poor reviews after the show's opening on 9 December – failed.

The musical, based on Roman Polanski's camp 1967 horror flick The Fearless Vampire Killers, with music by Jim Steinman, has been a big hit in Vienna, where it continues a five-year run. It was extensively adapted for American audiences, with an English translation, and more comedy.

Changes were still being made as it went through its unusually long stretch of 61 previews. "This is simply a bad show that doesn't seem to know what it wants to be," one critic said. "Sad to say, The Phantom of the Opera star as Count von Krolock (rhyme that with schlock) is not so much a shadow of his glamorous former self, as a puffed-up cartoon. The only horror is that so much money and talent has been thrown at this project."

The closure is a blow to Crawford, who has translated his success in Phantom into a high-rolling career in America, dotted with awards and multi-million-dollar earnings. He made a string of successful albums and moved to Las Vegas.

Crawford recently denied reports he was paid $180,000 (£112,000) a week, and vowed to make the show work. "I'm excited but I'm also very nervous. If you want to be brave and adventurous, you've got to go out there. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But I will be trying my hardest, as will everyone else."

Other New York Disasters

The biggest recent British failure on Broadway was Chess Tim Rice's collaboration with the Abba songwriters, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Anderson. It closed after 68 performances at the Imperial Theatre in 1988, losing $6m (£3.7m).

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Aspects of Love closed after 377 performances in 1991, despite $14m in advance bookings.

Sir Ian McKellen's time at the Virginia Theatre failed to provide the "feeling of success" he had hoped for from Broadway. Wild Honey, by Chekhov, in which he starred, lasted 28 performances in 1987.