Gossip

Sunset Returns to West End Care of Watermill???

The Watermill Theatre’s current actor-musician revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Boulevard is tipped to transfer to the West End after it finishes its current run in Newbury, West Berkshire on 30 August (See News, 15 Jul 2008). 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 Watermill’s new small-scale production stars Kathryn Evans as Norma Desmond and is directed and choreographed by Strictly Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood, who also brings his new dance show Flamenco Flamen’ka to the West End’s Lyric Theatre next month (See News, 4 Jul 2008).

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).