Sunset Boulevard on Broadway review – the performance of a lifetime from Nicole Scherzinger

From the first moment Jamie Lloyd‘s sensational new production of Sunset Boulevard, when anti-hero Joe Gillis unzips himself from a body bag to sing the opening number, to the curtain call, when the actors receive a thunderous standing ovation completely stone-faced, you get the sense that the British auteur director absolutely hates some of the baggage around this show. Every single choice is made with a wink and a twinkle, all in service of exposing how ridiculous it can be. In doing so, Lloyd has somehow managed to create a giddily thrilling revival, with star Nicole Scherzinger delivering one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen as a psychotic Norma Desmond for the TikTok era.

I’ve seen Lloyd’s shows go from maximalist to minimalist. A Cyrano de Bergerac in 2011 was full classic, with plumed hats and bulbous nose; a decade later, he stripped the play of its feathers, prosthetics, and scenery to focus solely on the words. Anyone who tells you that Lloyd’s Sunset is minimalist doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about. Grandiose in every conceivable way, with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Don Black, and Christopher Hampton’s jazzy score played by a 27-piece orchestra (conductor Alan Williams, his 19 musicians, and sound designer Adam Fisher do the lord’s work as we’re hit with a wall of brass and string), this Sunset might not have John Napier’s gilded palazzo levitating like the original, but they don’t need sets. As Norma says, “they have faces.”

Those faces are projected on a gigantic movie screen that doubles as the roof of Soutra Gilmour’s cavernous soundstage of a set (she also did the activewear costumes). Lloyd’s overarching commentary seems to be that once upon a time, only movie stars got their closeup; today, anyone can. And the faded celebrity Norma — locked up in her mansion on Sunset Blvd with her servant Max (the gloweringly intense David Thaxton) as her man Friday/enabler — will do anything to steal the spotlight back for herself. So, when out-of-work screenwriter Joe (Tom Francis) winds up on her property to stash a car that’s being repossessed, Norma sees him as her meal ticket back to Paramount. Seizing the unexpected opportunity, she gets him to read and edit her new screenplay, paying him in clothes and housing and sex, threatening suicide if he leaves.

Camp has always been part of Sunset Boulevard. Gloria Swanson’s crazy-eyed jaunt down the staircase at the end of Billy Wilder’s iconic 1950 film is the only case in point you need. Adapted by book writer/lyricists Black and Hampton with extreme fidelity to Wilder, Charles Brackett, and D M Marshman Jr’s original screenplay, the musical has always taken itself seriously, with Lloyd Webber’s score a mix of repetitive Hollywood jazz motifs and park-and-bark power ballads. Wilder directed a satire on Tinseltown; Lloyd Webber and his collaborators wrote a gothic romance that ends in tragedy.

It’s pretty clear what Lloyd thinks the tone of the show should be. If you have any question in act one, it’s answered right at the top of act two, when Francis wanders his way through the bowels of the St James Theatre, passing one ensemble member holding a stuffed chicken, another wearing a monkey costume, two more making out, Thaxton staring lovingly at a photo of Scherzinger and her singing group the Pussycat Dolls, Scherzinger herself brandishing a gun and a “Jamie Lloyd Company” coffee mug, and a cardboard cutout of Lloyd Webber, which Francis puts his arm around. It’s straight up making fun of Sunset Boulevard, the musical, and the seriousness with which it’s always been presented. The show is all the better for it, and it’s just refreshing to see a director who has an actual opinion presenting it on the most expansive scale possible.

In the production’s biggest coup, Francis sings the title song while wandering across the street into Shubert Alley and back without missing a beat, as exhilarating a moment as it gets. This sequence is aired with stunning clarity, thanks to video designers/cinematographers Nathan Amzi and Joe Ransom, who utilise technology without latency to give everyone their close-up. It’s brilliantly lit by Jack Knowles, whose monochromatic efforts lead to an end-of-show pop of colour that jolts us out of our seats.

Olivier winner Francis is an excellent Joe, a hunk who believes he’s owed the world and is just as happy to use Norma for his means as she is to use him for hers. Grace Hodgett Young is formidable as Betty, the young screenwriter who Joe starts collaborating with and eventually spurns, making a major impression in a way that I’ve never seen before. I wouldn’t expect to single out Betty’s fiancé Artie (talk about a nothing role), but Diego Andres Rodriguez is surprisingly memorable, particularly when he’s broadcast on the screen with a single tear running down his cheek. For the ensemble, choreographer Fabian Aloise provides feverish movement that seems to place us directly within Norma and Joe’s frazzled brains.

The key to unlocking Scherzinger’s mega-watt performance for the ages is how much of the Norma Desmond tradition she embodies in real life. Despite being a best-selling pop star with Pussycat Dolls (which disbanded in 2010), and how talented she is, she’s never really gotten her due. She’s always been on the periphery of greatness until now, and she proves from the second she slinks on stage in a black dress and chunky sunglasses that she is, was, and forever will be a Star. With fog swirling around her, she pounces her way into “With One Look” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye” as if her life depends on it. It’s just one of those performances that makes you say, “Where have you been all this time?”

Throughout Sunset Boulevard, the characters sing that Norma was “the Greatest Star of All.” Watching Scherzinger, not only do you really, truly believe it, but you’ll never forget it, either. She’s come home at last, and with any luck, she’ll never leave.