Just as it took John Doyle’s seminal 2004 production of Sweeney Todd (1979) for the musical to truly find its home, so to now has Sunset Boulevard (1993) found a home in the capable hands of The Jamie Lloyd Company, in this astonishing take for 2023. Starring Nicole Scherzinger as faded silent movie star Norma Desmond, it plays now at the Savoy Theatre for 14 weeks only. Let’s be absolutely clear… Sunset Boulevard 2.0 is about the best show you will see on the West End for a decade. And, if there was a god, this show would run and run.

Scherzinger’s performance is a revelation: hard to describe, and deserves to be seen rather than written about. Her reinvention of the role, based on the 1950 film of the same title, redefines the character of Norma Desmond for our times. Instead of a tired recluse, scared of the world, she’s the opposite: a self-obsessed forty-something, infatuated with her own opinions, her own writing and her own image. In the age of social media it sounds more than familiar — it’s a dire study.

Before now, Sunset Boulevard has been more famed for its backstage drama than its onstage prowess. The original 1993 production, though aesthetically superior, was beset by technical issues; with the material poorly reviewed. The result was a series of high-profile firings, and the leading lady suing the composer. Perhaps the biggest headline though was that such a hotly anticipated show didn’t come close to returning its investment.

Jamie Lloyd’s production doesn’t share the same concern about unwieldy, over-expensive set design — after all, there’s nothing in it.  A bare stage.  Simple, modern costumes.  Dynamic lighting.  Some camera and smoke work.  It’s an exercise in what can be most achieved with the least.  Lloyd’s production races to its conclusion, and improves the material for it.  For example, in a lull when Desmond (Scherzinger) is off right, the ensemble are put to use in extraordinary ways — aided by dramatic and in-yer-face choreography.

Two moments that do stop the show are brought with the two greatest musical theatre arias: “With One Look” and “As If We Never Said Goodbye”. Both stood in the original production; but here, their purpose is more than just to rouse the audience — here they provide a moment to linger.  And linger we do.  See it.

Playing at the Savoy Theatre, from 21 September 2023 to 6 January 2024.