New series IN THE WINGS launches with performances and interviews

In conversation with Olivier award-winning composer Richard Thomas, featuring live performances by Dougie Carter (Les Misérables; Sunset Boulevard), Aaron Lee Lambert (Hamilton; Miss Saigon; Sweeney Todd), Steph Parry (Mamma Mia; 42nd Street) and Laura Pick (Wicked; The Sound of Music).

Filmed from 3rd June - 6th June 2020 in strict accordance with social distancing guidelines. 

In The Wings is a series of human interest interviews and live entertainment hosted in a London theatre, with composers, writers, and creatives of shows that have been postponed due to COVID-19. 

In the first step towards theatre’s return, In The Wings aims to shine a light on the shows directly affected by the industry’s shutdown and celebrate the work of those composers and writers. Featuring a line-up of stellar West End stars, each episode will feature the FIRST LIVE PERFORMANCES in a theatre with a LIVE BAND since the West End closed.

Episodes will air from this Friday 12th June 2020 at 7:30p.m. and thereafter at the same time each week. Olivier award-winning composer Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer: The Opera; Made in Dagenham) will be joined by creatives from 4 upcoming new musicals that were postponed due to Coronavirus: No Limits; Legends of Arahma; Gretel! and Dorian: A Rock Musical. 

REVIEW: Sunset Boulevard at The New Victoria Theatre, Woking

Following on from Sunset Boulevard’s smash-success run at the ENO, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s much-loved musical has been touring the UK with a magnificent 16 piece orchestra. We follow struggling writer, Joe Gillis, on his quest to create a movie script which will get his name in the Hollywood history books. On his way, he meets Norma Desmond – once upon a time, a Silent Screen starlet, whose light is somewhat fading as films in Hollywood progress. Desperate to launch her return to film and fame, she shows Joe a screen-play she has been developing: a mish-mash mess about Salome – in which the aging Desmond plans to play the 16-year-old lead…. Needless to say, the plot doesn’t sit too well with Gillis, so he agrees to work with Desmond to re-write the screenplay and launch her return to the industry. In time, their relationship becomes blurred and Desmond begins to emotionally blackmail Gillis, threatening suicide and damnation if he leaves her. The story escalates and climaxes with a series of dramatic eventualities at her home, 10086 Sunset Boulevard. 

As Norma Desmond is Ria Jones, who made headlines when understudying Glen Close at the ENO in the same role. I had the pleasure of hearing her sing at the WhatsOnStage Awards last February and she received a full standing ovation after just one number. In Sunset Boulevard, she is utterly compelling and gripping as Norma. The power of her performance came from deep within her. Her eyes were so expressive that her inner monologue was almost audible. “As If We Never Said Goodbye” is one of my all-time favourite Musical Theatre songs, and the version I heard last night is my new definitive rendition. Moving and emotionally harrowing – it was perfection.