Sunset Boulevard – Savoy Theatre 2023/24

I LOVE A FLAAANNNEL ON A MANN

I was just about to say that it’s a shame that “ahlavflaaaanalanaman” (soz Patti) won’t feature any longer 😂

Presumably The Lady’s Paying has been retained in its original form (ie Surrender)?

Someone on X/Twitter commented on the choreography of this production, and whether Glen Close and Patti Lupone would have done it.

Well, as Lupone wimped out of doing Larry Fuller's choo choo train in 'Evita', I can't see her getting on board with Fabian Aloise's 'roly polys with spread eagle legs'.*

*This is an actual description of NS moves! - hilarious. But even funnier thinking of ex-Normas doing them. I'd like to see it made an Olympic sport.  Lupone, Paige, Close, Clarke, each firing their own starting gun, and then roly polying round the track, lured like greyhounds but with a chimp as the bait.

Has the score/orchestrations been updated to be more contemporary?

I had decided against booking this, but the reviews I have read here make me intrigued. Add me to the chorus of people who don’t mind the cuts.

How many players are in the orchestra?

Slightly off-topic but was just rewatching old Sunset clips in preparation for Tuesday’s visit and ended up with Mazz singing AIWNSG at AllyPally, had forgotten how special it was having just come out of lockdown to hear her sing “I don’t want to be alone / that’s all in the past / This world’s waited long enough / I’ve come home at last”. Honestly one of the most cathartic moments of my life.

production has LED panels galore, large and small, and at least 2 attached to each video camera rig

Okay, so; cards on the table. I can’t stand Jamie Lloyd’s work. That said, I know loads of people adore his productions. He is the Quentin Tarantino of theatre; all his productions have a feel to them, where after five minutes you’d know it was his work. Naturally, for me this is a very bad thing, for others the exact opposite.

I went to a talkback Q&A after Lloyd’s Piaf - the one and only production of his I enjoyed - and I asked a few questions about his recurring tropes. The answers he gave me were polite and concise, he outright says he thinks visually and works things like plot and dialogue around the aesthetic he wants to create.

Specific tropes seen in Jamie Lloyd productions:

1. Barefoot actors. Lloyd thinks it feels more organic and “real”. See also Tarantino, but the latter does have an admitted foot fetish, hence multiple close-ups per movie of women’s feet. (You won’t be able to unsee it!).

2. Black box/minimal set. Lloyd doesn’t want sets to distract from imagination and for audiences to - quote - “get lazy”. He says he tries to avoid scene changes altogether for pacing reasons.

3. Simple costumes, for the above reasons.

4. Related to points 2 and 3, stark lighting with flashes of colour (usually bright red) for effect. In this production, it would appear to be Norma’s blood set against her dark hair/stark lighting and black costumes.
This is known as “Colour Isolation” or “Spot Colour”. A famous example of this are Oskar Schindler’s visions of the little girl in “Schindler’s List”.

5. Cast staying on stage to “watch” or oversee proceedings, when they are usually offstage in other productions and the script. Tied to this, actors being onstage from audience entry/during the interval.

6. Performers lining up with chairs. Oddly specific this one, but happens at least once per production. So many chairs, so many people standing in lines.


Whilst these are the main ones seen in most productions, there are others and once a director reaches “auteur” status, they seem hell bent on imposing each of their trademarks onto a piece. Basically, it’s stuff they think is cool, which is fair enough really.

But I just simply couldn’t bear to sit through another Jamie Lloyd production. They are all the same, with different words and songs (if a musical).

All those chairs... Jamie Lloyd would have a field day with "Come From Away".

More or less the same. It's the Cullen/ALW ones. I think adapted slightly and there are also some extra keys (playing I presume with heavy pre-programming). It sounds (thanks to modern synth technology I guess) like a much bigger orchestra than it is. 

A few sections have been changed slightly but only people who know the OLC/OBC(?OLAC) inside out would really notice. 

Similar to Lloyd's Evita where the score was played as per ALW/Cullen orchestrations for the Grandage version but what's on stage was visually so different.