Sunset Boulevard – Savoy Theatre 2023/24

So a couple of things, with the caveat that I went into this new production expecting to hate it, having loved the mothership. I left converted. A terrific piece of thinking and creativity - if not perfect, but where it wasn't, it wasn't ruinous and overall one of the most exciting theatrical experiences I've had in a long time. So it's been interesting to me to watch the conversation evolve, having only seen it once.

For me, the twerking and the finger snapping and the modern affectations jar the storytelling. It is a piece fixed in time, about a woman who lost everything twenty or thirty years before that. (Norma's descent would have been around a hundred years ago now.) This show is challenged in parts by the absence of sets and props and the other conventions of staging. So I do not understand why Lloyd chose insert those moments where he did. The entr'acte to me, for example, was self-indulgent and accomplished nothing but a few good laughs. (The monkey was funny.) But I don't get what he was trying to accomplish (and I am truly happy for any of you who do to educate the rube that I am.) To me his decisions invited the audience to laugh at, not with, and encourage camp, wherever it might emerge. (Which raises the question, if we're twerking and snapping away, why the hell is everybody so stony faced during the majority of the curtain call? Seems a bit late to sternly remind us this you have just been watching been a very serious meditation on fame.)

One of the reasons I don't like Glenn Close in the role is to me she delivered the Carol Burnett version of Norma. Over the top, with little time spent in the real world before slipping into the madness at the end. I get it, it was big and scenery chewing and made up for her limited vocal ability, but it was camp to me, with none of the small nuances other actresses brought to the role. So many of those actresses seemed to telegraph I get what happened to this lady. (Also, worth stating over the age debate... Norma's always been fairly close to fifty and the women playing her typically a bit shy of 50... Petula Clark probably the biggest outlier and a couple of the performers in the subsequent reboots probably. But Norma's not that old though in the fifties she would be seen as old.)

Also, what is the purpose of young Norma standing out there at all, let alone for so long? When we saw it, I assumed something had gone wrong backstage. But whatever the time length, what is she doing or meant to do or meant to accomplish? Most of the audience won't know who she is, surely?

I don't think the show should change much in the transfer to New York but if it doesn't change it all I wonder if there isn't a real risk of a reverse London: the critics may love it but the New York theatre crowd may scorn it (and this show isn't really a feeling good tourist trap.) New York has a weird relationship with British productions and is always happy to savage them (Recognising it's all subjective, New York hated Tracey Bennett in End of the Rainbow and Elena Roger in Evita, but both seemed in large part tangled with a large element of New York bitching "How DARE you?" over whatever it found objectionable.) This goes double for anything with ALW attached. So the reaction may be I've heard this is sensational and they'll knock it down just based on that.

All this said with the true respect for the show. What a rethink! NS delivered the greatest renditions of the big numbers I've ever heard and I've heard many of them, live or recordings. Her performance was visceral and sobering. Somehow, this stripped down show does capture the tragedy of the broken dreams and dark bad luck that one way or another kills so many in Hollywood.

Anyway, ramblings (obviously)... I'm procrastinating. Happy Christmas to all!

Gosh what did he say?
Think I'd be too nervous to talk to him lol.

You should have mentioned the cast recording!

LOL - that's brilliant!

I've seen him a couple of times there. Last time he was coming in with Madeleine just before it started and FOH was trying to get them into the middle of a row. There were 2 spare aisle seats and he was like "we'll just sit here." Madeleine to her credit told him "we can't just sit there, those seats will belong to someone" and managed to move him along. So FOH did indeed get them into the allocated seats quite a long way from the aisle. (And the aisle seats were claimed a minute later by their rightful owners).

Lady LW clearly a good influence!

He's seen it a lot - he was there almost every night during previews which (for a show that is a revival) has got to suggest he likes it?!

It's funny because you'd assume he'd hate it. It's neither the style of the show as he originally created it nor anything like the style of any show he's done. If I was 75 and someone was creating a quasi-modern tik-tok inspired video screened version of my beloved work I'm not sure if I'd me much behind it. But maybe he likes his stuff feeling fresh and modern again.

Nicole is going on The Wheel tonight although I think it was filmed in the Spring.

He certainly should. Sitting to listen to the playout the other night just proved that it is an orchestra at the peak of its powers, regardless of any augmentation. It just sounds fabulous.

I wonder what a Jamie Lloyd POTO would look like 😲

No Phantom.
No opera.

I think The Beautiful Game would work as a stripped down production, it's not iconic enough that people would demand the original.

I mean it’s still hit and miss when RUG/ALW not lead producing.
OAT JCS/OAT Evita/Sunset - hit.
Joseph/Aspects/Curve Evita - not a full miss but (IMHO) many problems.

Also was RUG producing what was wrong with Cinderella? Implies had they written it and fully handed it over might have been much better. Personally I think they got a decent production out of the piece. (The set could have been a bit more solid I guess). Am just not sure a Jamie Lloyd or similar could have improved on it. Ditto Stephen Ward. 

That said at this point I do think ALW fully handing over to someone else’s creative vision for revivals is a very good thing.