Jamie Lloyd’s Sunset Boulevard wins seven WhatsOnStage Awards

Jamie Lloyd’s West End reimagining of Sunset Boulevard has scooped seven trophies at the 24th Annual WhatsOnStage Awards.

Triumphing in the categories of Best Direction (for Lloyd), Best Performer in a Musical (for Nicole Scherzinger), Best Professional Debut Performance (for Grace Hodgett Young), Best Musical Direction/Supervision (for Alan Williams), Best Lighting Design (for Jack Knowles), Best Sound Design (for Adam Fisher), and Best Video Design (for Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom), Sunset Boulevard was the most-awarded production of the night.

WhatsOnStage’s lead critic, Sarah Crompton, previously praised Lloyd’s “perfectly controlled” staging for its technical elements, describing Knowles’ lighting design as “sultry” and “shadowy”, while Fisher’s sound design and Amzi and Ransom’s live cinematography combined to create a “dazzling tapestry of action”. Thanks to Williams, the music also “re-emerges as if freshly written”.

Scherzinger and current Hadestown star Hodgett Young, with their first WhatsOnStage Awards to their names, have now set their sights on Broadway debuts, with the production set to premiere across the pond later this year.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Don Black and Christopher Hampton’s beloved musical failed to win any major accolades on this side of the Atlantic, either for its 1993 West End premiere or its subsequent London revivals in 2008 and 2016. The 1994 Broadway premiere faired better, garnering seven Tony Awards, but only time will tell if this new production can soar to similar heights in New York City in 2024.

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