Peter Viney's Blog

Music by Andrew Lloyd-Webber
Book by Don Black & Christopher Hampton

Directed by Jamie Lloyd
Soutra Gilmour- set and costume design
Fabian Aloise – choreographer
Alan Williams – Music Supervisor & Musical Director
Natma Amzi and Joe Ransom – Video design and Cinematography

The Savoy Theatre, The Strand, London
Saturday 18th November 2023, 14.30

CAST

Rachel Tucker – Norma Desmond
Tom Francis – Joe Gillis
Grace Hodgett-Young – Betty Schaefer
Hannah Yun Chamberlain – Young Norma
David Thaxton -Max Von Mayerling
Ahmed Hamad- Marty Green

As so often, many dancers are given a name. We never hear these names. It is musical practice to make them feel they have a ‘name part.’

Carl Au – Myron / Jones
Georgia Bradshaw – Lisa
Jordan Cork- camera operator / ensemble
Catherine Cornwall- camera operator / ensemble
Tyler Davis – Sheldrake
Kamilla Fernandes – Dorothy
Laura Harrison – Catherine
Charlotte Jaconelli- Joanna / Guard
Olivia-Faith Kamau – Nancy
Luke Latchman – John
Michael Lin – Swing / Assistant Dance Captain
Emma Lloyd- Mary / Heather
Mireia Mambo- Jean / Dance Captain
Shayna MacPherson – camera operator / ensemble
Gregor Milne- Sammy
Kody Mortimer – finance man / Frank
Jon Reynolds- swing
Kirsty Anne Shaw- swing
Jon Tsouras – finance man, Cecil B. DeMille
Charlie Waddell- Morino / Hog-Eye
Harrison Wilde- swing
Lillie-Pearl Wildman – swing

Infuriating. We booked because we read reviews of how startlingly different Nicole Scherzinger’s performance was. Just after the play started, five minutes in, like a modern TV series, they project film credits. WTF, her name isn’t up there. This Norma Desmond doesn’t look at all like her either. Get to the interval. If the programme hadn’t been red ink printed on black … why are West End programme designers totally ignorant of the basics of text design … we might have read it in the ten minutes of gloom before the play started. All theatres reserve the right to replace stars with understudies. Thats a given. They usually- well, every time ever before this – have notices in the lobby. We asked. Rachel Tucker is playing Norma Desmond. The programmes has two pages for Ms Scherzinger. One for Ms Tucker who is not an understudy., but an “alternative”. In tiny print it says ‘Guest starring on Monday evenings and select other performances.’ We assume that the famed Ms Scherzinger can’t be fucked to do matinees on two-show days, even when they’re fully-booked at swingeing prices. Or was she preparing to receive her Evening Standard Award 2023 (Best Actress). If Rachel Tucker (BTW, Rachel Tucker was totally brilliant … no blame on her) is indeed an alternative star, why isn’t her name and image on the posters?

‘We sent everyone an e-mail.’ they said. Really? Not us. Also this is the board directly outside the theatre doors on the afternoon of the performance:

Does an e-mail the day before help? Not at all. We had seen King Lear the night before. We had only booked a hotel to stay over so as to see Sunset Boulevard. As is now common, our train ticket was non-exchangeable, valid only for the specified train. Our hotel was paid. Non-refundable. We did all this to see Nicole Scherzinger. If the original booking had said she wasn’t doing Saturday afternoons, we would not have booked and got a late train after King Lear. BUT it was fantastic. We are really glad that we ended up seeing it.

Deep exhalation. Let’s move to what we saw.

We had never seen nor heard the music of Sunset Boulevard. I have seen the Billy Wilder 1950 film several times, with Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, the lonely faded star of the silent screen. We hadn’t seen the earlier versions of Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s musical, because basically I dislike Lloyd-Webber’s stuff. I caused amazement once by declaring Phantom of The Opera one of my worst theatrical and musical experiences. People were so surprised I later went to see it again. I thought it was even worse. (I was very proud of my kids in the 11 year olds Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, and I liked that on the professional stage too).

This is radically different to the original production with Glenn Close, it says. We wouldn’t know though reviews mention the glorious Hollywood mansion set in that. Well, let’s retract negatives about Sir Andrew because this is brilliant.

The concept is Jamie Lloyd’s and it is bare stage, no furniture, black and white costume, silver screen. We are in film. The only colour we see on the cast is the flash of red blood on Joe right at the end. For cinema buffs, in Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin the only colour in a B&W film, is the red of the Soviet flag as it unfurls at the end. As colour film had not been invented, this was hand painted in frame-by-frame on every print.

The costumes and the set reinforce this. The major point is having onstage camera operators and projecting detailed facial expressions in a huge scale. This is the best use of on-stage cameras I have seen and requires a live video mixer.

The play opens with dancer Hannah Yun-Chamberlain standing, lit behind a gauze for several minutes before the audience lapses into silence. She then dances solo. She will be the young version, the young shadow, of Norma Desmond. Her dancing is wonderful. Then Tom Francis as Joe Gillis, crawls out of a body bag to appear.

Joe Gillis is a writer in Hollywood. He is trying to get a script adopted with script editor Betty Schaeffer at the studio. He is being pursued by the brokers men (sorry it is the pantomime season) and parks the car they want to re-possess in a driveway on Sunset Boulevard. It turns out to be the home of faded silent star Norma Desmond who mistakes him for a mortician, there to bury her pet chimp (this is well before Michael Jackson and Bubbles). She is attended by the sinister Max.

Later we discover that Max was not only the director who discovered her when she was sixteen, but that he was in the same league then as D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. De Mille. He was also her first husband. His life is dedicated to protecting her fragile mind. He writes the fan letters to make her think she still has fans. Norma has written an abysmal script for Salomé and Joe is press-ganged into becoming her script doctor. Max is frightening. She wants to present the script to Cecil B. DeMille. This all interferes with Joe’s blossoming romance with Betty. Eventually Norma will have the script sent to Paramount who have been calling her. She believes they want to revive her career. In reality, they just want to buy her magnificent 1920s car for a film.

For me, an issue is that nearly all the dialogue and narrative is carried in song, with actors face forward to audience. I prefer the style where dialogue is just dialogue, and songs comment on narrative rather than are the narrative. I learn to live with it though it’s the style that put me off musicals for years.

So we don’t have Nicole Scherzinger, but Rachel Tucker as Norma is a powerful first-rate singer and actor. The video closes ups where they switch and morph between Hannah as her younger self and her older face is entrancing, and is being mixed live, remember.

Tom Francis is the co-star NOT a support, and deserves better billing as such. Add the romance with Betty Schaeffer (Grace Hodgett-Young). She is beautifully expressive in camera close up, as is Tom Francis. This is what the close-ups look like, and coupled with a dance sequence:

After the interval, the camera picks up Tom Francis. It follows him around the backstage area … even more of a maze than the front. He is singing, and the live 17-piece pit orchestra is playing. He wanders past a coke-snorting actor, and into the star dressing room (and there is Rachel Tucker), then out into the street, still singing as passers by watch, then into the maze of the theatre again only to emerge through the side doors with Steadicam camera and light in his face to mount the stage and finish the song. That kind of hand-held backstage walk was in David Letterman’s The Late Late Show on TV, and then the camera did the same with Jim Carey in Times Square, and in Birdman (except there the subjects weren’t aware of the camera). However, this was a live theatre play. It seemed totally live, new every show. I’m sure it was. It was a jaw-dropping effect. One of the great theatrical moments of 2023.

The plot develops as Norma becomes violently possessive of Joe and jealous of Betty. I’m not putting up pictures of Norma, because she’s not the Norma we saw.

The orchestra were excellent. Choreography was tremendous. Everyone was a great singer. I didn’t come out humming any songs, but then they were unfamiliar.

Two days later, we watched the Blu-ray of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard. A warning note, the picture restoration is very good, but the lips are out of synch with the soundtrack. What struck us so strongly is that all the good lines of dialogue come directly from the film. Line after line. Word for word. Yet the only credit for the writers in the programme is ‘Based on the Billy Wilder film’. Really the credits should read ‘Based on the film script by Charles Hackett, Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshall Jnr.’ It is appalling that they are not credited.

More gripes …

The Savoy Theatre looks glorious outside. It’s set at the side of, within and below the ultra-luxury Savoy Hotel in The Strand. We’d never been there before. It is a maze inside with multiple bars. If only they’d get rid of just one bar and install some toilets. The queue for the Ladies in the interval stretched around the corner, all the way upstairs and outside into the rain. Really. West End toilet standards are very low indeed. This might be the worst of a bad lot. Yet ATG Theatres exist it seems to sell booze. People were carrying in whole bottles, not just glasses of wine. The bars are their reason for existence.

Then signs say that if you leave during the performance there is no re-admission.

The production operates on a no latecomers and no re-admittance policy. Any arrivals after 7:30pm will not be permitted to enter the auditorium until the interval. There will also be no re-admittance to the auditorium once Act 2 has started. Please make sure you arrive on time to avoid disappointment.

The man next to me got up and pushed his way past the row about ten minutes before the interval. Fair enough. When you’ve got to go you’ve got to go. No readmission is harsh, but normally someone would stand at the back and watch from there, but no, five minutes before the interval he pushed his way back. We all had to stand, meaning we obscured the rows view behind. It was enough disturbance for the cast to see it. I have a bruised foot where he trod on me. But there were no ATG staff administering. It is normal to have at least one person inside front of house. Isn’t that an Elf and Safe Tea rule?

Overall

All in all? The production and performance is a clear five star. Why are there no pictures of Rachel Tucker? However, prompted by the Football League’s deduction of points for irregularities by ownership and management, it really needs a full four stars deducted.

That’s not fair to the cast (though probably fair on the producers and ATG), so I’m going to give it five stars.
ATG Theatres (and Nicole Scherzinger) get zero stars.
*****

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

five star
Sam Marlowe, The Stage *****
With its stark, prop-free design, its noirish black-and-white palette, its jagged, sinewy choreography and its inspired use of live video, it’s as dark and glittering as a black diamond, and as lean and lethal as a stiletto blade. 

Andzej Lukowski, Time Out *****
Christiana Ferrauti, The Upcoming *****

four star
Domenic Cavendish, The Telegraph ****
Sarah Crompton, What’s On Stage ****

three star
Arifa Akbar, The Guardian ***
It is sure to incite strong reactions. For some, it may be the show of the year. For me it was emotionally empty. 

Matt Wolf, New York Times
I can’t imagine another London show generating comparable buzz this season.

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

JAMIE LLOYD (Director)
The Ruling Class, Trafalgar Studios
Richard III, Trafalgar Studios
The Hot House, Trafalgar Studios
Macbeth, Trafalgar Studios
The Homecoming, Trafalgar Studios
The Duchess of Malfi, Old Vic
The School for Scandal, Theatre Royal, Bath

RACHEL TUCKER
Communicating Doors, Alan Ayckbourn, Menier Chocolate Factory 2015