“The Devil Wears Prada” at Dominion Theatre
Mark Shenton in the West End
6 December 2024
In a so far mostly dismal autumn and winter for new musicals on either side of the Atlantic, legendary British pop star Elton John is responsible for one each in the West End and on Broadway respectively. Both shows were coincidentally launched in the opposite territory to where they have now ended up.
Amy Di Bartolomeo as Emily.
Photo credit: Matt Crockett.
Tammy Faye (with a book by James Graham and lyrics by Jake Shears), which premiered at London’s Almeida Theatre in late 2022, has notably failed to cross the Atlantic successfully; after opening at Broadway’s Palace Theatre on 14 November, it will shutter there on 8 December, following a run of just 24 previews and 29 regular performances. With a reported capitalization of $25 million, it will have lost all of it.
Elton John’s husband David Furnish, who is billed as a lead co-producer of The Devil Wears Prada (alongside Broadway veteran Kevin McCollum and London-based Jamie Wilson Productions), appears to have made a cannier choice to bypass Broadway after the show’s somewhat muted reception in Chicago (where it tried out in October 2022, and was described by New York Post critic Johnny Olegsinski as “a haute mess” in a one-star review). He has brought in a new creative team and (after a try-out at Theatre Royal Plymouth in the summer) now installed it in one of London’s most cavernous addresses, the Dominion.
Preview performances have been a complete sell-out, as London audiences are attracted by a familiar title – the story is based on the 2003 novel by Lauren Weisberger, which was turned into a film starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway.
The smooth professionalism of the show in replacement director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell’s new production is a given at this stage; as with his previous pop collaboration with composer Cyndi Lauper on Kinky Boots (premiered on Broadway in 2013 and seen in the West End in 2015), he’s certainly comfortable in conjuring a world of high fashion and rather lower human emotions of greed and unbridled ambition, too.
Matt Henry and Vanessa Williams.
Photo credit: Matt Crockett.
As with Applause, the 1970 Broadway musical based on the cult Bette Davis film All About Eve, this is the story of a protégée with her eye on the main prize. It follows her unsteady climb to the top of the stiletto heel – the show’s logo is on display above the theatre’s canopy before you even enter – of the fashion industry bible Runway magazine, in whose offices it is set.
It is widely speculated that the character of the magazine’s editor Miranda Priestly is based on legendary British-born Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, who attended a charity preview of the show and commented afterwards, it’s “for the audience and for the people I work with to decide if there are any similarities between me and Miranda Priestly”. As played by a steely but sympathetic Vanessa Williams, Wintour should be flattered by the comparison. In casting her, Mitchell is quoted in the programme saying, “She has sass, fashion, wit and dry sensibility. And an iron fist and an iron spine.”
Would that Elton John had given her a fiery enough song to showcase those qualities. But if the score (with lyrics by Shaina Taub and Mark Sonnenblick, and book by Kate Wetherhead), only ever achieves a pedestrian accompaniment to the action, the performances manage to elevate their characters’ substance into something more three-dimensional.
While Williams takes top billing, she lacks stage time to have a total lock on the evening, with Georgie Buckland and a scene-stealing Amy Di Bartolomeo as her executive assistants Andy and Emily respectively. Among the brash, well-drilled ensemble around them, Olivier Award winner Matt Henry makes the best of an underwritten role as Nigel, another much-overlooked but loyal staffer.
By coincidence, Wintour was also a guest in the last week of the opening of the new interactive London exhibition Vogue: Inventing the Runway, which she helped to curate at Lightroom in King’s Cross. Though I’ve not yet been to see it, I suspect it offers a considerably more insightful portrait of what happens behind the scenes of the fashion-show industry than this lame, tame musical. For all its visual allure (though Tim Hatley’s handsome sets are somewhat dwarfed by the massive Dominion stage), it often feels more Primark than Prada.
