Profits, which were pounds 46m in 1994, fell to pounds 30m in 1995 and, despite the recovery in sales, stayed the same in 1996.Even more significant is the performance of Really Useful Group, the subsidiary that manages his musicals. In 1994, its profits were pounds 35.4m, in 1995 they were down to pounds 26.1m and they fell again in 1996 to pounds 21.7m.The amount paid to Lloyd Webber for his share of the copyrights has also been falling: from pounds 19.7m in 1994 to pounds 18.6m in 1995 – much what he paid for Picasso’s Angel Fernandez de Soto At the same time, the company has been borrowing heavily. In 1994, Really Useful Holdings had bank overdrafts and loans totalling pounds 221,000. In 1995, they soared to pounds 17.1m.This is a far cry from the heady days of 1986, when Really Useful floated on the stock market.

The City was greedy at the prospect of spectacular and sustained growth, with hit shows in the pipeline and spin-offs galore But that never quite happened. Lord Lloyd Webber soon tired of having to answer to City analysts, and within four years of taking his company to market, he took it private again.Really Useful’s last major hit coincided with those four years. The Phantom of the Opera, which was launched in 1988, has grossed hundreds of millions of pounds Cats – opened in 1981 – is well over the pounds 1bn mark. But both were produced by Lloyd Webber working with Sir Cameron Mackintosh. That collaboration ended and it is Mackintosh who went on to produce global hits in Miss Saigon and Five Guys Named Moe. Lloyd Webber, by contrast, produced Aspects of Love and Shirley Valentine.Undeterred, the talk was, until recently, of expansion. In an interview with the New York Times last June, Patrick McKenna, Really Useful’s chief executive, spoke of live-action or cartoon versions of Cats, Phantom, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Starlight Express.

Theatre complexes, said Mr McKenna, would be built in Las Vegas and London to show Lloyd Webber productions. Since then, the building plans have been scrapped and the films postponed. In January, 18 of Really Useful’s 95 staff were declared redundant.When Lloyd Webber has a hit, it’s huge But so are his flops, and Sunset Boulevard has been a flop. The show closed in London and New York earlier this month, to be followed shortly by the German version and the US road tour. Sunset Boulevard, a story of hollow Hollywood glamour, was more adult than most of his shows. Children did not pester to see it, and people did not go twice. Nor did it parade great stars, though when Glenn Close was in it, sales soared.The set was spectacular and hugely expensive.

The Hollywood mansion on the Broadway set cost $2.75m (pounds 1.7m) to build, and $1.5m to install. Lloyd Webber’s fees as composer and producer came out of a weekly budget estimated to be twice that needed by Miss Saigon. The New York investors have been complaining they have seen little return for their money.The idea that Lloyd Webber might be losing his touch has been bolstered by his latest show, Whistle Down The Wind, which opened in Washington DC, but did not transfer to New York. Having shut it, Lloyd Webber is anxiously rewriting in the United States.Perhaps he has gone out of fashion. The crowd-pullers on Broadway these days are noisy, fast and furious affairs, with minimal sets like Rent, and Bring In ‘Da Noise, Bring In ‘Da Funk.Two weeks ago, the Lloyd Webbers arrived at Elton John’s fiftieth birthday party. He cut an incongruous figure in Leyton Orient football kit; she came as a bunny girl. This was a social occasion but it is hard to imagine business was ever far away, especially as John Reid, Elton John’s frenetic manager, has been installed as Lloyd Webber’s personal business manager.Reid and Elton John would love to go into musicals.