Hollywood’s laid bare in this glitzy musical hit
WHILE most of us associate Hollywood with glitz, glamour and red carpets, it’s also a very tough town in which to make it. Those who do are treated to an entitled life full of private jets, designerstuffed wardrobes and champagne on tap, but they’re very much in a minority.
For every person who makes it, there are hundreds more who only know rejection, disappointment and missed rent payments — the writers who can’t seem to find the perfect script, the bitpart actors who never quite get their big break, the unknown directors who just need someone to take a chance on them.
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s famed Sunset Boulevard finds its home among these people. We first meet Joe Gillis, a screenwriter on the run from debt collectors trying to repossess his car. He and his friends spend their time bragging about non-existent big breaks and promising each other jobs when they finally make it. The line that must echo endlessly around the Hollywood Hills — ‘Let’s Do Lunch’ — is an impressive introduction to the main players.
Joe inadvertently stumbles across the mansion of Norma Desmond, a former silent-screen goddess who has now become a recluse on the titular Sunset Boulevard. Seeing in Joe a chance to resurrect her career, she uses her wealth and wiles to convince him to move in with her to work on a screenplay she has written.
The film is a complicated, rambling silent movie, which Joe knows has no chance of ever being made — even with Norma’s long-standing connections to Cecil B DeMille — but the gilded life Norma can offer him seduces him into agreement.
Norma — aided by her butler Max von Meyerling — builds a claustrophobic world around Joe, insisting on knowing his whereabouts at all times, especially when she believes his romantic affections are being cultivated by a fellow writer, Betty Schaefer. Joe’s attempts to escape her clutches speed up Norma’s descent into madness.
Despite its subject matter being ensconced in the seedy underbelly of Hollywood life, Lloyd Webber’s masterpiece is a glitzy production, filled with show-stopping numbers, glamorous costumes and impressive sets. The addition of a live orchestra is a wonderful touch.
But this show is stolen completely by Ria Jones as Norma. She first made the move from understudy to lead in the show at this level when Glenn Close was forced out with illness in London last year. At the time, audiences were upset, with some even demanding refunds, but that was before Ria took to the stage.
She oozes vulnerability, wiliness, complexity and sadness in all the right places as the actress unable to let go of the past, leaving the audience feeling for her despite her very obvious flaws.
Best known for Hollyoaks and Strictly Come Dancing, Danny Mac plays the role of Joe perfectly — cocky and arrogant, yet unwilling to hurt Norma when he realises she’s fallen for him, to the point of putting his own future happiness at risk.
Special mention must also go to Adam Pearce as Max and Molly Lynch as Betty, who lead an extremely talented supporting cast.
It may be a tale of those who struggle to find success, but Sunset Boulevard has no such worries for itself.