COMEDY THEATRE (NOW HAROLD PINTER THEATRE)

WHAT WE SAY

SUNSET BOULEVARD AT THE COMEDY THEATRE

Our verdict:  Not as good as the legendary original.  3 stars.

Norma Desmond was the greatest silent movie star of them all, until the advent of the talkies made her a has-been. Joe Gillis was a struggling screenwriter until, by chance, he pulled his car into the driveway of 10086 Sunset Boulevard, home to the reclusive Miss Desmond. This chance encounter would change their lives, forever.

Such is the premise of Billy Wilder's classic 1950 film, adapted for the stage by Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1993 and now reinvented in an ambitious new production from director Craig Revel Horwood. This production sold out prior to the opening of its run at the Watermill Theatre, Newbury this summer and transferred to the West End's Comedy Theatre in December 2008.

Indeed, when it comes to inventiveness, it does not disappoint. The first innovation one notices is that musical arranger Sarah Travis has done away with the orchestra entirely. Of the cast of 13, a dozen play instruments while singing or dancing, which in itself is an impressive spectacle.

The production opens with a bang - the players stream onto the stage from the wings and front of house, bringing with them the babble and buzz of Hollywood life, enacting sliced and diced scenes meant to give the audience a taste of the frenetic pace of a film studio.

The costumes are limited to a palette of black, white and grey, to some extent adding to the sense of airless gloom one feels when in Chez Desmond, but also evoking the black & white films of the day. The overall dullness this creates is relieved by the warmth and sheen of the various instruments, played by the actors as they sing (or the singers as they act).

Diego Pitarch's cleverly modal set design manages to be minimalist while giving the impression of a lavish and claustrophobic Gothic mansion; the merest flip of a chaise longue transforms the space into a drug store, and projection is used to portray the car chase that leads Joe to Norma Desmond's Sunset Boulevard abode.

Kathryn Evans' portrayal of Desmond manages to simultaneously convey both the formidable charisma of the star who was and the trembling fragility of the faded starlet who is. Her opening number 'With One Look' gave me goosebumps, and got the first of many rapturous rounds of applause.

As Gillis, Ben Goddard puts up a strong performance that stands up superbly to Evans' Desmond. The pair have a strong physical chemistry, which comes to fore in a rather sexy tango, and in the palpable anticipation mingled with dread in the pindrop silence leading up to the kiss that seals Joe's fate and sends Desmond reeling spectacularly into breakdown.

Goddard acquits himself well in his big show-stopping tune 'Sunset Boulevard' where it's apparent that the writing team of Don Black and Christopher Hampton have mercifully resisted the temptation to rhyme 'Boulevard' with any other word ending in 'ard'.

Other notable performances from Dave Willetts as the mysterious butler Max, and Laura Pitt-Pulford who plays Betty Schaefer with an appropriate freshness in her West End debut.

This production is a bit of a puzzle. On the face of it, there's nothing to dislike -- the cast deliver superb performances, deftly executed given the absolute tininess of the stage, and the songs, especially the breathtaking show-stoppers, manage to hold one's attention throughout (though some of the musical flourishes have a tendency to drown out parts of the songs they accompany).

But the star of the show in this case has to be Pitarch, whose clever use of props that help shift perspective in an instant provide a convincing example of a pared-down production that loses nothing of the scale one associates with the original Billy Wilder film, to which it is entirely faithful.

And therein lies the rub; for those who have seen and loved the film, this production doesn't offer much more newness in the telling - its innovative appeal lies almost entirely in the marvellously multiskilled cast (who got two curtain calls and a standing ovation), the simple yet effective set design -- and, of course, the songs and music, refrains of which I caught myself humming for days after.

If you're a die-hard Lloyd Webber fan, or indeed a fan of musical theatre in general, there is much here for you. Those whose hearts belong to the silver screen may find as I did that the film remains unsurpassed; this production merely pays tribute to a legendary classic.

Sunset Boulevard runs at The Comedy Theatre until mid-April 2009.