Theatre

Sunset Boulevard: The Lunchtime Cut

Oran Mor, Glasgow

Mary Brennan

FIVE STARS

The sign on the wall says SUNSET BLVD, just like in the iconic Billy Wilder film noir of 1950. It's a small detail, perhaps, but in director Morag Fullarton's cleverly streamlined adaptation of the film, the loving attention to authentic detail is part and parcel of a real bobby-dazzler production.

The action is initially set up as if Gloria Swanson was doing a screen test for the role of fading movie-star Norma Desmond. Background information, locations and so forth are read aloud by a script girl (Frances Thorburn) thereby leaving the stage - with Norma's much-swagged boudoir on an upper level, Joe's rackety office below - free for the cast of four to tell it like it was when unemployed writer Joe Gillis stumbled into Norma Desmond's life, and got the swimming pool he always wanted... Pity he was floating in it, dead.

But then, as Norma (Juliet Cadzow) says, "No one ever leaves a star." Joe (John Kielty) might only have seen an ageing diva in a crumbling mansion, but the egotistical Norma believes herself untouched by time, still adored by her fans, still a glamorous box-office draw.

Yes, she is a ridiculous figure - and there's certainly no shortage of sweetly-timed laughs or hilarious sight gags in this show - but Cadzow never drops into caricature or send up. Instead she swans around in Kenny Miller's satin-siren negligees, is by turns toweringly grand or boa-constrictor possessive, before she sashays into tragedy with those closing lines, "All right, Mr De Mille. I'm ready for my close-up."

Kielty, Thorburn and Mark McDonnell are the spot-on satellites to Cadzow's compelling star. A lunchtime cut that leaves you wanting second helpings.

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