Sunset Boulevard Rises Again in December???
Date: 11 November 2008
We’re still awaiting an official announcement, but we hear that I’s are being dotted and T’s crossed on the anticipated transfer of the Watermill Theatre’s recent revival of
Sunset Boulevard (See
The Goss, 12 Aug 2008). All going to plan, the actor-musician production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical is set to open in the West End next month, probably moving into the Comedy Theatre, where
Fat Pig, the Neil LaBute comedy in which model-actress
Kelly Brook made her West End debut last month (See
1st Night Photos, 21 Oct 2008), has announced its final extension to 29 November.
The musical was last seen in the West End, in a much bigger production, at the Adelphi Theatre, where it premiered in July 1993, with Patti LuPone starring as Norma Desmond, closed in March 1994 for rewrites and reopened five weeks later in a revised version that ran for another three years.
Based on Billy Wilder's 1950 Oscar-winning film of the same name, Sunset Boulevard depicts the faded glamour of the former Hollywood icon Norma Desmond, who’s now living in isolation, with only memories for company. When struggling young screenwriter Joe Gillis appears at her crumbling mansion, she demands a second chance in the limelight.
The new small-scale production, which had a sell-out season at the Watermill in Newbury this summer, stars Kathryn Evans as Norma Desmond and is directed and choreographed by Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood. Musical arrangements are by Sarah Travis, who also collaborated with John Doyle on previous Watermill actor-musician productions of Mack and Mabel, Gondoliers and Sweeney Todd, all of which had West End runs. The last also transferred to Broadway, where Travis became the first woman to win the Tony Award for Best Orchestration (in 2006).
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