timgowen.com

This new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Christopher Hampton’s glitzy 90s take on the 1950 Billy Wilder film is overall a phenomenal re-interpretation. The stage is spartan and dark, the cast is racially blind and there’s none of the opulence that went with the original set. The enduring image of the film and the musical was the body of Joe Gillis floating in a swimming pool. Gillis narrates how he got there and we find out. But of course the big songs and the big drama emanate from the screenwriter’s killer—faded movie star Norma Desmond. There’s a lot to say about the different women who have taken this role, with Glen Close probably being the most famous. This time it’s Nicole Scherzinger. Norma is on stage before the overture begins, and is an omnipresent figure throughout. Joe Gillis (Tom Francis) emerges from a body-bag to narrate his story: fleeing creditors who want to repossess his car, he goes to Paramount Studio to pitch an idea to a producer, but the studio doesn’t l...

Miss Saigon was one of the big musicals that opened in the 80s and 90s. Based on Puccini’s Madame Butterly  and created the writers of Les Misérables plus an American lyricist—all men—it starred Lea Salonga as Kim and Jonathan Pryce as The Engineer—the man who runs the club where the girls go to meet GIs during the closing days of the Vietnam War in 1975. Kim meets Chris, whose friend is called John because it rhymes with Saigon, and Chris and Kim fall in love and she gets pregnant while he goes back to America and restarts his life, including getting married. The show was known at the time for the big helicopter which played a role in the fall of Saigon theme, and the fact that white Jonathan Pryce wore eye makeup to make him look “more Asiatic”. And I thought it was new and brash and brilliant. I bought the cassette, and I bought the book about it (cowritten by Mark Steyn—and look what happened to him?) And there are good things about it: I guess the main one being the discover...