Six actors, four different productions over four months.

Studio Rep was billed as a performance 10 years in the making. But the collaboration between The New Actors Company (NAC) and the New Wimbledon Theatre has been scrapped after the withdrawal of a confirmed investment at the last minute.

The NAC's director and producer, Robert Laycock and Daniel Souter respectively, said: "Our talented company of six actors had worked tirelessly in the rehearsal room on the first play which was in great shape ready for our first preview next week,"

"But, without all the committed investment in the bank, we felt we were unable to proceed. We are devastated."

The performance was meant to get underway earlier this week with a showing of Breathing Corpses to run for three weeks.

This would be followed by Macbeth, then Dresden and finally The Night Before Christmas.

All in all these shows were supposed to run from August 27 until December 24, but it ended before it even got started.

Nick Parr, theatre director at New Wimbledon Theatre added: "Everyone at the theatre is so disappointed for Rob and Daniel.

"Ticket sales were strong, the work looked amazing and all the investment seemed secure.

"We work in a precarious business and this sad cancellation shows that even with over a year of planning, things can go wrong in the final stages through no fault of the theatre or the producers."

He added that customers are being contacted by the ticketing team to arrange refunds and that there are still plenty of other shows on in the main auditorium and the studio