Sunset Boulevard – Savoy Theatre 2023/24

That didn’t look chaotic at all to me. Everyone behaving respectfully.

I think it’s actually rather lovely all those people turned out like that- I’m sure the cast were touched by it

The final walk-around: vm.tiktok.com/ZGe2ToQY3/

Usually that’s a celebrity turning up. Perhaps SJP is watching the final show?

Bigger……SU POLLARD?

I sat next to her in the theatre once and sadly she didn't get the recognition she deserved.

I mean, the cast appreciate it on social media and the staff and security are always down for chats so the people who matter enjoy the crowds. 🤷‍♂️

There was no onstage goodbye speech at the end tonight. It didn't really make sense to do that anyway, as the credits at the end are an intrinsic part of the show, a meta way of making the ending feel like the ending of a movie.

Instead, Tom Francis said goodbye by giving the monkey a big cheery hug goodbye in the meta movie. And Nicole Scherzinger said goodbye by holding one note longer than I've ever heard anyone hold a note before! Absolutely astonishing. Well-deserved in-show standing ovation for her, and well-deserved standing ovations for everybody at the end.

In spite of tickets for this evening costing an arm and a leg, it was worth every penny! (I’m just glad I booked early!) Simply sensational - and Nicole really was at her dazzling best.

There was a very long applause after With One Look and when the lights came up she actually took a bit of a moment to savour it - which prompted more cheers!

Tom holding the umbrella for his final “Sunset walkaround” was actually quite effective because he was able to switch hands and use it for one final, grand “Sunset Boulevard” reveal when he spun round on the corner of Savoy Court. Quite the crowd out tonight!

The big note in As If We Never Said Goodbye was the longest it’s ever been (I’d say a good 18 seconds?!) and there was a standing ovation for a full minute afterwards.

Time to start saving up for Broadway!

It was the cast backstage! Doing that little cheer thing they always do just before last show.

I was mid/front stalls and someone about 5 rows ahead started loudly shushing, not realising was the cast!

was at the show tonight

seen Rachel three times, my first time seeing Nicole

Is Nicole usually so comedic in the role? or was it just because it was the final performance?
Not sure I appreciated it - I did like the Jai Ho dance though !  

This was my first show of the year, on January 1st, as it was the only time I could make a Monday, and I really wanted to catch Rachel Tucker as Norma.

This made for a particularly meta show when the cast sang "Auld Lang Syne," and looked forward to everything being better in the New Year.

Tucker was phenomenal in the role, as wonderful as Nicole Scherzinger, albeit her performance has a very different flavour, in my opinion.

Some spoilers follow. . .

Of the two, I found Tucker more intimately moving, Scherzinger more grandly breathtaking.

Tucker's Norma seemed to regress to becoming a young girl at times, so jubilantly happy was she to be dancing with Francis, for example, as if dancing for the first time. Equally, her winks to the audience were gleefully joyfully playful, like a little girl discovering everything wonderful about life for the first time. She reminded me of Judi Dench playing Wendy in that Peter Pan play, as the contrast between herself and the actress playing her younger self was so severe in hard lit closeup, and yet, in spirit, Tucker's Norma was more youthful than her physically perfect doppelganger.

So, for me, the theme of the tragedy of how aging destroys our bodies, even as we retain a youthful spirit, came across much more strongly in Tucker's performance than Scherzinger's, and I found myself crying buckets.

But Scherzinger's performance tonight was something of utter magnificence. She's too grand and knowing to be naively youthful, like Tucker.

Where Tucker regresses to becoming a young girl in spirit, Scherzinger seems to become pure id, sometimes snarling like a velociraptor, sometimes moving as smoothly and silently as a shark, and when she sings, its like Shirley Bassey, in her prime, on acid, so pristine are her vocals, so full voiced and powerful, elongated and athletic.

When she's snarling and covered in blood, it's so primal it's reminded me of Benedict Cumberbatch emerging from his cocoon for the first time in the Frankenstein play, like a depiction of humanity evolving for the first time, as a thinking but flailing irrational creature.

Everything human, from her singing, to her movements, to her ferocious emotions, are so large and so magnificent in Scherzinger's Norma, that I think it's one of the most dazzling portraits of the primal essence of humanity I've ever seen on stage.

Absolutely fabulous. I've seen this show 4 times, and it was easily 5 stars for me every time.

Let’s agree to disagree. Whooping and cheering is fine. AFTER the song has ended.