Did Sunset Boulevard with Nicole Scherzinger show critics new ways to dream?

Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage
★★★★

“Its masterstroke is to place Nicole Scherzinger front and centre and leave her there as Norma descends into almost gothic madness, her eyes wide, her gestures increasingly frantic. From her first entrance in black slip and over-sized sunglasses, to her final crazed departure ready for her close-up, bathed in blood, she plays Norma not as a pathetic creature or a victim, but as someone who will not surrender, who refuses to give up her dream, whatever the cost.

“When she stands bathed in warm light and sings of the world of movies that she loves in ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’, she brings out all Norma’s passion and beauty.”

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. The casting in the lead role of former Pussycat Doll and X-Factor judge Nicole Scherzinger – a sex-bomb popstrel now in her mid-40s – is a stroke of genius, pointing up our rampant appetite for fame and exploding stereotypes about how women in middle age should look, think, feel and behave, while rubbing our collective nose in our persistent tendency to slap a sell-by date on female stars.”

Nick Curtis, Evening Standard
★★★★★

“It’s a physically and emotionally exposing performance. Barefoot in a clingy slip, Scherzinger is often either isolated on stage, writhing on the floor or has her sculpted bone structure and pleading eyes blown up on a huge, tilted screen.”

“It’s a tour de force of a show, in love with showbiz and the creation and destruction of illusions. The art deco glamour of the Savoy Theatre makes it the perfect setting. I’d say you should kill for a ticket, but Lloyd has ensured prices start at £21.”

Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out
★★★★★

“Really, the show is the triumph of Lloyd and his creative team. From a purely technical perspective this is just stunning, making astounding use of live video: shout out video designers and cinematographers Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom. From the delicious faux opening movie credits sequence onwards, the monochrome footage relayed onto the back of the set is magnificent: it looks great, like a living film noir, but also they seem to have eliminated the latency between live performance and feed, a genuinely groundbreaking achievement.”

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Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph
★★★★

“Daringly applying a largely monochrome scheme, Lloyd has the ensemble suggest the cinematic world for us like flickering particles in a void – sometimes isolated in piercing spotlight, darting in shadows, and forming looming silhouettes. The tightly drilled, production-line fleet opening choreography brings out the springy cynical wit of the material. There is a magnificence in simplicity, and Scherzinger’s Norma, initially drawing herself regally downstage, in black dress and shades, her dark hair long with a soupcon of the untamed warrior, has a poise that thrills.”

Fiona Mountford, The i
★★★★
“Scherzinger can, of course, sing (and goodness, can she sustain a note), and in an unwelcome new West End trend, each number of hers was greeted by a standing ovation. Tom Francis gives a strong account of Joe’s early-onset disaffection and there is fine work from newcomer Grace Hodgett Young as script editor Betty.

“Fabian Aloise’s choreography is gloriously adrenalised, making opening number ‘Let’s Have Lunch’ an uncompromising statement of Hollywood’s thrusting world. There is so much, almost too much, going on here.”

Alice Saville, The Independent
★★★★

“Sunset Boulevard isn’t one of Lloyd Webber’s finest scores – it’s peppered with reminders of catchier musicals such as his Evita, which Lloyd staged a stripped back revival of in 2019 – but it sounds magnificent here, with Scherzinger bringing rich, unfussy, powerful depth to torch songs like ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’.

“It’s the kind of uncompromisingly brilliant performance that makes you want to use cliches like ‘tour-de’force’. And somehow, the fact that Scherzinger’s own star shines so brightly here adds poignancy to Norma’s desperation, as she scavenges for such approval on a stark, deserted stage.”

Arifa Akbar, The Guardian
★★★

“There is great vocal power to the songs, including the titular number, ‘Sunset Boulevard’, by Joe, as well as ‘New Ways to Dream’ and ‘As If We Never Said Goodbye’ by Norma. The pace is slowed down for the songs and verges on inert, while the radicalism of Lloyd’s staging butts up against Lloyd Webber’s far less radical score.

“Even so, it is sure to incite strong reactions. For some, it may be the show of the year. For me it was emotionally empty. Either way, few people will walk out indifferent.”

Clive Davis, The Times
★★★

“In the end, though, the camera trickery becomes overbearing. In a bravura sequence at the start of Act Two, we see Tom Francis, as the doomed screenwriter Joe Gillis, make his way from his dressing room to the stage, passing through corridors before he enters the auditorium via a door in the stalls.

“It’s clever, yes, but to what purpose? And all the little in-jokes, the cardboard cut-out of Lloyd Webber and the off-duty actors goofing around, only serve to undercut the show’s tragic aura. It doesn’t help, either, that Scherzinger, who, at 45, cuts a seductive cat-like figure, plays Norma less as a monarch in exile and more like a hyperactive Morticia Addams.”