Theater review
THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA
Two and a half hours, with one intermission. At the Dominion Theatre in London.
LONDON — That’s all?
I wish.
“The Devil Wears Prada,” Elton John’s horrid musical that crashed and burned two years ago in Chicago, is giving it a second go in London.
But you know the old phrase: If at first you don’t succeed… don’t succeed again!
The totally new production at the Dominion Theatre, directed by Jerry Mitchell of “Kinky Boots,” is at least an improvement from the train wreck I saw in 2022. Now it’s more of a fender bender.
Still, the clumsy couture of “Prada,” which has wholly misguided Broadway aspirations, should steer clear of New York. Keep your distance, Tiny Dancer.
Predictably, we’re served yet another forgettable and derivative score from John, whose awful “Tammy Faye” just flopped at the Palace after 29 performances.
Every song here, with lyrics by Shaina Taub and Mark Sonnenblick, is either the blandest club beat you’ve ever heard or a public domain cover of “Gloria” by Laura Branigan. When not “nntz-nntz”-ing, everybody natters on and on about being “seen.”
For instance, there is an insufferably sappy number for Nigel, Stanley Tucci’s fashion editor character hamhandedly played by Matt Henry, called “Seen, Suddenly, Seen.”
One of its imbecilic lyrics: “No longer hiding in closets, I curate them now.” Oy vey.
His other tune, “Dress Yourself Up,” is the closest John comes to catchy here.
The “Billy Elliot” composer’s show remains fashion weak — barely an iota of the fabulous 2006 comedy film starring Meryl Streep. Onstage it’s a musical comedy where you don’t laugh or nod your head. Maybe you nod off.
Vanessa Williams fares OK as ferocious Miranda Priestly, the ice-cold magazine editrix who’s a stand-in for Anna Wintour. And while the actress radiates pure showbiz effervescence, she can’t make Miranda into the gargantuan figure Streep so memorably was. She’s just a run-of-the-mill bad boss.
John and his co-writers don’t know what to do with her, which is a problem when she’s the title character. It would be generous to call Miranda’s songs afterthoughts.
She meets her match in dowdy Andy (usually played by Georgie Buckland, but Olivia Saunders when I went), a self-righteous journalism grad from Jersey City. “On the wrong side of the Hudson,” she sings.
Andy goes to work at Runway as Miranda’s second assistant, despite knowing nothing about clothes, gets ambitious, owns her style and rises the ranks. Think “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” but bad.
Her chef boyfriend Nate (Rhys Whitfield), meanwhile, is peeved about her newly demanding schedule, and Andy 2.0 starts flirting with successful writer Christian (James Darch). The show is as clueless about both characters as it is with everything else.
The best parts of Kate Wetherhead’s book, such as it is, are cribbed word for word from the screen version. The new material, then, sticks out like an orange sweater.
How about first assistant Emily’s tasteless lyric, “Enjoy Paree. I hope an uncut Frenchman gives you HPV”?
Or the ensemble’s oft-repeated line, “Hell is a runway where the devil wears Prada.” What does that mean? Beats me.
Mitchell, to his credit, has turned “Prada” from unwatchable (the Chicago production was directed by Anna D. Shapiro) to competent.
But the score and book are what they are. With a main character like Miranda, who Streep made addictively interesting by doing less not more, the musical treatment just doesn’t make sense.
Actually you get the distinct impression that Team “Prada,” in whipping up this soulless mess, were more concerned with making cents. Another cynical movie adaptation.
And if you’ve come for the fashion, Greg Barnes’ designs are lackluster — neither camp nor runway ready.
One night ago I saw “Robin Hood,” the hysterical pantomime at the London Palladium. The great comedian Julian Clary walked onto the stage, elaborately dressed as an owl, and joked, “You don’t get this at the ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’”
The audience howled.
