Synopsis Based on Billy Wilder's 1950 Oscar-winning film of the same name, Sunset Boulevard depicts the faded glamour of former Hollywood actress Norma Desmond. The ex-silent movie star is portrayed living in isolation, with only memories for company. However, when struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis appears at her house, she demands a second chance in the limelight.
After an absence of 12 years, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard returned to the West End last night with the scaled down actor-musician Newbury production starring Kathryn Evans transferring to the Comedy theatre, where it runs for a limited season to 18 April 2009.
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.
Kathryn Evans and Ben Goddard reprise their Watermill roles as Desmond and Gillis, with West End veteran Dave Willetts joining the cast the actress’ servant, Max von Meyerling. The production 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.
Overnight critics generally welcomed the revival of this “great and undervalued musical” with open arms. Most found Revel Horwood's “scaled-down, intimate” version actually surpassed its more grandiose West End predecessor, enabling the story to take centre stage (as opposed to the enormous staircase). Evans' “full throated” performance as Norma Desmond shone amid a “jaw-droppingly skilful” actor-musician cast, and Sarah Travis' “artful arrangements” were also heavily praised. There were some black marks, with more than one critic questioning the wisdom of retaining the filmed car chase sequence from the original production. But overall it appears that, in the words of the Evening Standard's Nicholas de Jongh, “small is better and sometimes beautiful”.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (three stars) - “Whereas John Napier’s design for Trevor Nunn’s original production was a magnificent baroque palazzo with a giant staircase and a huge cast, Revel Horwood and his designer Diego Pitarch have a cast of eleven actor-musicians whirring around a simple spiral staircase, down which Kathryn Evans as Norma Desmond still manages to descend like a bedazzled harpy … Ben Goddard as Joe, bearing a striking resemblance to both Paul Merton and the role’s originator, Kevin Anderson, forms a strong apex of the emotional triangle with Norma and her creepy valet Max Mayerling (Dave Willetts), the old movie director based on Eric von Stroheim who was Norma’s first husband … I’m surprised that the show retains the filmed car chase, which was always a sign of defeat in the original. Overall, the small-scale approach is not as thumpingly convincing for this piece as was John Doyle’s on both Sweeney Todd and Mack and Mabel.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (four stars) - “I normally resist shows in which the actors double as musicians. I no more wish to see Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd giving us a toot on the trumpet than I yearn for Tosca to pick up a fiddle in the midst of Vissi d'Arte. But my objections are overcome by Craig Revel Horwood's intelligently pared-down production, first seen at the Watermill Newbury, of Andrew Lloyd Webber's under-rated 1993 musical … Eschewing giantism, the production benefits Kathryn Evans' full-throated Norma: you feel she's still big, it's just the sets that got small … Dave Willetts lends a sinister Karloff-like weight to her supportive valet, and, thanks to the sparkling allure of Laura Pitt-Pulford as an aspiring Hollywood writer, you are keenly aware of what Ben Goddard's Joe is sacrificing in his adherence to Norma. But the main discovery is that inside Lloyd Webber's big belter of a musical, there is a smaller, more dramatic show that has been waiting for years to be let out.”
Nicholas de Jongh in the Evening Standard (four stars) - “Small is better and sometimes beautiful when it comes to this scaled-down, intimate version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1993 musical melodrama, closely based on the famous Billy Wilder film … Sarah Travis’ artful arrangements help you clearly hear the romantic, nostalgic line of Lloyd Webber’s score, from the first moments when a single violin laments the murder of Ben Goddard’s handsome, baby-faced Joe Gillis … The 1993 production incited you to come out singing the praises of the sets, of that vast, spectacular staircase down which Norma comes like a tragedy queen en route to a meeting with destiny. It reeked of sumptuousness. Here the elegant designer Diego Pitarch reduces Norma’s home to a modest spiral staircase under which stands an upright piano, a candelabra perched upon it. The swimming pool into which Joe’s bullet-laden body tumbles is aurally suggested rather than depicted. Yet I was far more closely engaged by the doomed love affair of clinging Norma and unwilling Joe in this version than I was at the 1993 premiere.”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph- “In its essentials it's Phantom after a sex change, and it provides the composer with another opportunity to do what he does best: create a heart-aching, lushly tuneful musical with more than a hint of madness about it. The original production was encumbered by over-elaborate sets, and one of Trevor Nunn's more leaden productions. In contrast, this hurtling revival, first seen at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury in the summer, is light on its feet and blessed with both sharp wit and a superb ensemble … As the reclusive silent-movie star Norma Desmond, Kathryn Evans is every bit the equal of such predecessors as Patti LuPone and Elaine Paige, with her weird wild eyes, extravagant hand gestures and air of mothballed hope and corrosive loneliness … Horwood's choreography is neat and witty, but it is the sheer panache of the whole ensemble that makes this revival so special, plus the sense that justice has finally been done to a great and undervalued musical.”
Simon Edge in the Daily Express(three stars) - “The Watermill specialises in using actor-musicians, which works well at times – the performer who can sing, smoke and play the double bass at the same time is a particular treat – but it also adds to the sense of muddle. On several occasions actors are forced to clatter off through the stalls because the stage exits are blocked by instruments. Evans herself is in wonderful voice and stops the show with her glorious hymn to the silent era, 'With One Look'. But she doesn’t convey why Norma is so wrong for the talkies. Sure, she is monstrous, but she isn’t ridiculous. Her big, deluded arrival at the Paramount lot is meant to be embarrassing, but here you end up wondering why Cecil B DeMille (Craig Pinder) doesn’t hire her. Only in her crazed finale – 'I’m ready for my close-up' – does she achieve Norma’s real grotesquerie.”
Dominic Maxwell in The Times(four stars) - “One of Lloyd Webber’s strongest scores gets performed with a flourish by a cast of 11 who play all the instruments too. Never has the Watermill’s cash-conscious house style chimed so well with the times … Sometimes the staging short-changes us on the woozy atmosphere this bleakly comical story needs. In the first act, Joe’s isolation and Norma’s delusions of grandeur are ill-served by the proximity of hard-working actor-musicians. And there’s little to distinguish the dreamy world of Norma and her manservant Max from Tinseltown. Also, some of the staging is fudged – a black-and-white back projection during a car chase reminding you that you’re watching something nicked from a film. But, Revel Horwood’s production is persuasive. As this jaw-droppingly skilful cast jump between instruments, Lloyd Webber’s score is always interesting, sometimes catchy … There are sketchy moments that need your goodwill. But the playing and the tunes come up fresh enough to make it worth the bother.”
It is over ten years since Sunset Boulevard closed in the West End after a three and a half year run (that was deemed a flop by Andrew Lloyd Webber standards) so it is very good news that the stripped down Watermill, Newbury, summer production by Craig Revel Horwood of this mordant, macabre and marvellous musical has been shunted into the Comedy for a winter season.
Whereas John Napier’s design for Trevor Nunn’s original production was a magnificent baroque palazzo with a giant staircase and a huge cast, Revel Horwood and his designer Diego Pitarch have a cast of eleven actor-musicians whirring around a simple spiral staircase, down which Kathryn Evans as Norma Desmond still manages to descend like a bedazzled harpy.
She sings magnificently, does Evans, ripping the heart out of “With One Look” (no musical numbers are listed in the programme, which is a disgrace; see my blog!) before proposing “New Ways to Dream”. It was always a wonderful irony that a silent movie star made her comeback in a lush musical, but there is also the sad desperation of a forgotten icon pitching for sex and companionship with a young wannabe screenwriter, Joe Gillis.
Ben Goddard as Joe, bearing a striking resemblance to both Paul Merton and the role’s originator, Kevin Anderson, forms a strong apex of the emotional triangle with Norma and her creepy valet Max Mayerling (Dave Willetts), the old movie director based on Eric von Stroheim who was Norma’s first husband.
The miracle of Sarah Travis’ arrangements is that in anatomising the Gothic richness of the score, they still suggest that richness. And Laura-Pitt-Pulford, busily melodic on flute – alongside Elisa Boyd on violin and versatile plucking and blowing from Alexander Evans, Kate Feldschreiber and Sam Kenyon - still manages an appealing characterisation of Betty Shaefer, Joe’s ginger squeeze at the studio.
I’m surprised that the show retains the filmed car chase, which was always a sign of defeat in the original. Overall, the small-scale approach is not as thumpingly convincing for this piece as was John Doyle’s on both Sweeney Todd and Mack and Mabel.
But the book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton are as rewarding and literate as ever, both in the romantic numbers and the hectic cynicism of “Sunset Boulevard” (well articulated by Goddard) and “Let’s Have Lunch” in the drugstore. And Willetts does well, without tingling your spine, with that wonderful surprise rising major-key resolution on “I’ve seen so many idols fall, she is the greatest star of all.”
- Michael Coveney
NOTE: The following FOUR STAR review dates from July 2008, when this production premiered at the Watermill, Newbury.
As the film noir opening sequence segues into a brassy full-on meet-the-band parade, this dazzling reworking for actor/musicians takes you straight to the heart of its dark story of Hollywood hopefuls and has-beens. On Diego Pitarch’s atmospheric set, ingeniously dominating this small space with a spiral staircase evoking the gloomy grandeur of the Sunset Boulevard mansion where lonely Norma Desmond nurses her neuroses, director Craig Revel Horwood and musical arranger Sarah Travis seamlessly collaborate to produce great story telling.
Travis’s ravishing arrangements thrillingly fill the small space – and your headspace – much as erstwhile silent film star Norma Desmond’s face once filled the screen. In this musical based on a film, the actor/musicians provide the audience with the intriguing experience of engaging with a movie score and the musicians playing the notes.
The marriage of instrument and actor, all skilfully choreographed, provides an integral quality for each character and Travis provides texture and variations of pace that enhance the mood and move the action. Brass dominates the antics of the young wannabes, its brittleness emphasising their febrile neurosis as they make a show of wielding their big shiny instruments. Plangent strings underscore tender moments, deepening the emotion, and strike warning notes to add to the suspenseful scenes.
Actor/musicians usually create a terrific collaborative ensemble and these well-cast performers are excellent in their individual roles too. Ben Goddard is uncomfortably convincing as struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis, whose life is changed forever when he stumbles by chance into the mansion – and the clutches – of the ageing siren, Norma Desmond. As he succumbs to the material temptations she offers and surrenders his principles, he actually manages to look sleeker and fatter – and he brings a big voice to his central role of narrator/protagonist.
Kathryn Evans’ Norma is by turns touching and terrifying, making it easy to see how Gillis becomes entrapped. Her singing catches the fragility of Norma’s sanity, bordering on hysteria, but staying rich and true – this Norma could have easily made the transition to the talkies! Edward York gives Norma’s devoted butler, Max von Mayerling, a creepy sincerity, working with logical inevitability towards his climactic revelation.
It’s invidious to pick out so few when all deserve praise, but Laura Pitt-Pulford is feisty and vulnerable as Betty, Joe’s would-be writing partner, already at twenty-two with twelve years as an aspiring child star behind her, as much a victim of Tinseltown as Norma and Joe.
This has to be as good as this musical gets – although Lloyd Webber’s development of the same few portentous themes with rare variation or light relief and even rarer middle eights becomes relentless and I came out humming the arrangements rather than the tunes.
Great to see how a wonderful musical can be made cheap :)
Fantastic actors who play while they are acting.
Kathryn Evans has a great voice! - Morten Aagaard
11 May 11
My second time to see this fantastic production. Kathryn Evans was off but still the show was good as the first time I saw it at the preview. - Rose glasses
29 Mar 09
A return visit to Sunset Boulevard to be greeted with the news that Kathryn Evans was indisposed. The part of faded film star Norma Desmond was played by faded TV comic Jessica Martin. She had little of the required demented grandeur or sufficient vocal power and 'Just One Look' was a major disappointment. A half-time pep talk must have done the trick as she was much more confident in the second half. Despite this disappointment this is a wonderful production of Sunset thanks to brilliant staging and adaptation of the score and the astonishing abilities of the young multi-talented cast of actor musicians. - David Baxter
26 Mar 09
THE FIRST HOUR IS BORING, THERE IS ONE FANTASTIC SONG AND THE LAST FIVE MINS ARE GOOD BUT I HAVE TO SAY I ACTUALLY HATED IT, IT IS VERY DEPRESSING, I HAD NO SYMPATHY FOR NORMA I DETESTED HER, WAS I SUPPOSED TO FEEL LIKE THAT???? I WISH I HAD SAVED MY 65 POUNDS AND SEEN SOMETHING THAT MOVED ME IN A GOOD WAY. I DID HOWEVER LIKE THE FACT THAT IT WAS SMALL AND COSY AND CHEAP ITS JUST THAT NORMA WAS SO HORRIBLE SHE MADE ME FEEL SICK. - KIM
22 Mar 09
I have seen many musicals over the years but Saturdays performance of Sunset Boulevard stands out as one of the best. It takes a while to get into but as soon as you are in the zone it is a true knockout!! Kathryn Evans performance of the big numbers are worth the ticket price alone!! The rest of the cast are superb and easily one of if not the most talented cast in the west end at the moment. Days later I am still thinking about it and raving about it to my friends. I sugguest anyone to book it now!! My only regret is that I haven't seen it sooner and may now not get to see it again!! - Steve
18 Mar 09
There hardly seems any point to posting a comment as so much has been said already and in particular by Johnny Fox, whose contribution could be turned into a paperback! It isn't a great show, but it does have a great subject in Billy Wilder's wonderful film. There have been rumours that Sondheim was considering making a musical out of it before Lloyd Webber got to it first. What a pity, I am convinced Sondheim would have made something truly wonderful out of it. As it is it has three show stoppers and a helluva lot of stuff sung though. I have to say I find that tedious. But I had no problem with the scaled down version and Kathryn Evans gives a terrific performance as Norma and is ably supported by Dave Willetts as a brooding Max. I saw the understudy play Joe this time, he was OK, Ben Goddard, whom I saw at Newbury, not only looked better but performed more convincingly. If you go with an open mind, a few drinks inside you and some camp friends you'll love it. - rds
11 Mar 09
Absolutely wonderful. Kathryn Evans (Norma) played the part to perfection. Also loved Dave Willetts (Max) who put in an excellant performance as always. Another performer who really stood out for me was Laura Pitt-Pulford (Betty). The small set and limited scenery did not detract from a throughourly gripping show. Still can't beleive that the cast were also talented enough to play their own instruments; hence completely doing away with the orchestra, FABULOUS. - CATH
11 Mar 09
ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS ! And that's coming from an total fan of the original lavish West End version. This was fantastic, although in all honesty it did take me a good 20 minutes or so to get into small stage, smaller budget mode, and stop subconsciouslly comparing it to the 90's production. However, once I did I get thoroughly drawn into it and was tapping my feet, and loving every minute of it. I was fascinated by the way the actors sang, danced, acted and played instruments (there is no orchestra) as they whizzed around the stage. Joe and Norma were superb in their roles, but star of the show for me was the lass playing Betty Schaefer, she had a lovely lovely voice. The only weak link for me was Manfred, who was far too feeble in both voice and stage appearance. I would uge anyone who has not seen the original show to see this, anyone who loved the original to do so also, but try as quickly as possible to get out of comparison mode. One criticism of the night, the music was so loud (we were dress circle) that on many occasion it drowned out the singing, but this did imrove as the show went on. This is important as it is the singing that tells the story.
OVERALL: FANTASTIC :-) - Tom Murray
19 Feb 09
All I really want from a musical in the west end is carbon copy of a lot of tired, dated ideas from all the past shows I've ever seen, and, as long Elaine Paige is in it, I'm happy. Never mind putting a new twist on things, never mind actor/musicians displaying more talent in their little fingers than most of the tired old hams I prefer. I don't want art, or orginality, give me lard. - theatre sad
09 Feb 09
Having listened to the whole soundtrack on CD and seen the movie I was looking forward to this. I sat in stalls, row n4 mat' of wed 28th jan 09. Would loved to have seen this when it was "big", it is the staging that has gotten small! (sorry, couldn't resist that!) At first I thought, what are all the actors doing with instruments? Then it became apparent. I thought the entire cast were very talented and it was all very well acted and some great voices. Ben really threw himself into the part and Kathryn portrayed Norma very well. Have not seen Dave Willets before and loved his voice. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and gave a standing ovation at the end, and would see it again, BUT thankfully I only paid £35.00 and would have been EXTREMELY miffed if I had paid more. It reminded me of an upper class soiree in someone's back room! You know, when the "musical" members of the family come round for Christmas and do a little "turn". Really hope, one day I'll be able to see the proper version. - Dave Woolrich
Opened 15 Oct 1881, designed by Thomas Verity and originally gas lit. 780 seats. An Ambassadors theatre since 2000 and renamed The Harold Pinter Theatre in September 2011 in recognition of the wide range of Pinter's plays that the theatre has hosted.
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