Sunset Boulevard review: Nicole Scherzinger roars but it’s more star than substance
Sunset Boulevard review and star rating: ★★★
Not to give anything away, but at the beginning of Act Two in Jamie Lloyd’s new production of Sunset Boulevard, the lead male role Joe Gillis, played by Tom Francis, uses pioneering theatre technology that gets one of the only mid-show standing ovations I’ve ever seen in the West End (It’s more common on Broadway. They’ll stand for anything. Us Brits would never.)
After much hype thanks to former Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger’s star casting, Sunset Boulevard is first and foremost a technical triumph, probably even revolutionary.
For a start, there are end credits, like in a film, name-checking the cast and crew, which scroll for a good minute at the end of the show while everyone stands diligently and watches. And an opening scene, again, like in a film. The choreography feels like it’s been made for the big screen too; there are some unbelievably quick scene changes that happen during the flash of a light, when in a second a two-handed scene suddenly switches into a dance scene with twelve people on stage. The sparse area is filled with film equipment strewn around and other than that, dry ice fills the blank space where a traditional set might have been.
All the ingenuity makes this a hugely impressive piece to pull off, even if sometimes the tech wizardry overpowers the sentiment. Nicole Scherzinger plays Norma Desmond, an ageing film star from the Silent Era who is losing her grip on reality, and her ability to make new and relevant work. Joe is a young, broke writer who runs into Desmond and helps her edit a script in exchange for living rent free in her house on Sunset Boulevard. This Savoy Theatre version adopts much of the music from the original Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, which first opened in the West End in 1993. (His is a rousing, if not necessarily memorable, soundtrack.)
Scherzinger gives a powerhouse vocal performance as Duvay. On a number of occasions she belts for a good ten seconds longer than you’d think humanly possible, giving the level of commitment she always seemed to have when working with contestants as a judge on The X Factor. But her Desmond struggles to find emotional depth, instead leaning heavily into the script’s meta tendencies, especially in the first half, too often making a laugh out of a line rather than seeing it through with resonant acting.
It helps Scherzinger that the general tone is melodrama, from the comically dramatic way scenes are cut together, with the use of a giant projection screen which flashes close up live filmed footage of the actors taken from the stage (they’re filming a black and white movie within the plot) to the way Desmond acts like a diva when she talks about her film script, but even so, Scherzinger hasn’t quite found her acting chops yet.
There’s better chemistry in the second act, when Perry’s relationships with both Desmond and burgeoning screenwriter Betty are tested. More often, Lloyd puts tosses aside the meta elements to let the actors just stand on the stage and do some raw acting. Against Scherzinger, Francis and Betty actor Grace Hodgett Young shine, giving some well-rounded performances which bring the drama.
Lloyd, who is known for his innovative work across recent adaptations of The Seagull, A Doll’s House and Cyrano de Bergerac, as well as the National Theatre’s The Effect, certainly provides blue sky thinking for how theatre can incorporate film technology in new ways. It’s exciting to think what he may have next. But all the meta tomfoolery of would-be film-makers running on and off with lights and cameras distracts, and, dare I say it, occasionally bores, not leaving enough space for examinations of the characters lifted from the original Billy Wilder film, and Don Black and Christopher Hampton’s original book.
Sunset Boulevard plays at the Savoy Theatre until 6 January; photos by Marc Brenner
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