[showtoones]

I have been hearing raves about this show at Watermill. Will it get a West End run??


Thanks!


ST

[Beckett]

It most likely won’t to be honest. I saw it last Thursday and loved it, I'm a friend of Craig's so I'm a little biased but I really did enjoy it and thought that everything worked excellently together. Always loved the score anyway, but it would be worthwhile seeing.

[Popplewell]

It would be brilliant if a west end transfer did happen - but somehow I feel its extremely unlikely

[Annasette]

Talking to the lady on the ticket desk doesn't count for that much, I know, but I rather gathered that they are certainly hoping it will go somewhere else. The West End is another issue, but the possibility wasn't dismissed.

[kevster]

I would so love it if this was to happen, I feel now is the right time to bring SB back to the westend, I dunno why but to me it just feels right.

[Orchestrator]

I would so love it if this was to happen, I feel now is the right time to bring SB back to the westend, I dunno why but to me it just feels right.

Do you think ALW would want his lavish masterpiece to be represented in the West End by a cheap actor-musician version?

[Annasette]

The form "Sunset" has taken this time, the actor/nusician thing, was determined not so much to be "cheap", although as low cost as possible essential to be viable, but to enable it to be staged at all in the relatively small Watermill. They couldn't have physically put on a huge production. That it has apparently worked so well must surely mean that such a cost effective production would/should tour really well. But I do tend to agree that a production designed for a limited stage, would not necessarily be appropriate for a large West End theatre. In a bigger arena, for long term intent, you would need the paraphenalia, the staircase and the orchestra etc. But I am not sure that the issue is so much that ALW would not want his "lavish masterpiece to be represented in the West End by a cheap actor-musician version". I don't think he would have approved it at all, if he hadn't been a bit curious to see how it might work without the trappings. And I suspect he will be very pleased if the reception is as good as it is looking it might be. It potentially gives the show legs that it wouldn't necessarily otherwise have had, where I think he would like his creation to be seen and heard first and foremost. And if this enables it to be able to reach more people, then that isn't going to be a bad thing, especially if it could be used to raise the show's profile ahead of the ever delayed film. And if people really want to see it in the West End, then I wouldn't write the possibility off. I don't imagine a long term production would be considered, but a limited run "by public demand" is not so completely unfeasible. Whether he would be prepared to use a non-RUG theatre though, is another question. And availability (of not ridiculously huge theatre either) might be a problem.

[Annasette]

And Charles Spencer of the Telegraph says he thinks this production of "Sunset" is "the best musical I have seen at Newbury since John Doyle's staging of Sweeney Todd, which transferred first to the West End before winning Tony Awards on Broadway." And he continues, "The Watermill is Lloyd Webber's local theatre, and he would be mad not to consider a future for this thrilling production which endows Sunset Boulevard with a welcome new lease of life."



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml...btsunset116.xml