BAZ BAMIGBOYE: Glenn Close rides into the Sunset again

By Baz Bamigboye for the Daily Mail

Published: 18:37 EST, 9 July 2015 | Updated: 19:46 EST, 9 July 2015

Hollywood star Glenn Close could be spending a few nights in London, making her debut on the opera stage.

The Oscar-nominated actress has been informally sounded out about starring as Norma Desmond in a new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical adaptation of the great Billy Wilder movie Sunset Boulevard.

The show’s being considered for a limited run at the English National Opera either next spring or a year later, in 2017.

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She's back: Glenn Close pictured now
Glenn Close playing Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard in the nineties

She's back: Glenn Close pictured now (left) and playing Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard in the nineties (right)

Close knows the role well. She originated it on Broadway, after Patti LuPone created it at the Adelphi in London.

The production would be part of the ENO’s musical theatre season that was launched at the London Coliseum back in March with Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfel performing in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd. This column broke that news, too.

The series of musicals is being produced with the ENO by Michael Linnit and Michael Grade.

When contacted yesterday, Linnit said: ‘I don’t even have the rights at this point! We haven’t negotiated them yet.’

He said that Sunset Boulevard was one of Lloyd Webber’s ‘most important scores’.

In the movie, directed by Billy Wilder, Gloria Swanson played Norma Desmond, a once famous star of the silent era now living in a decaying mansion who hires down-on-his-luck film writer Joe Gillis (played by William Holden) to write her comeback picture. The movie was also notable for featuring the one-time director Erich Von Stroheim as Desmond’s factotum Max von Mayerling. Wilder once declared that the movie should be turned into an opera because it had a number of operatic elements, including a dethroned queen.

The Sunset musical opened at the Adelphi in 1993, with Ms LuPone. John Barrowman took over the role of Gillis from Kevin Anderson a year later.

Writers Don Black and Christopher Hampton, along with Lloyd Webber, barely stopped working on it throughout its run. It had fabulous designs created by John Napier and Anthony Powell. And the score is still potent.

I understand Black and Hampton will revise the show’s book if Sunset gets the green light.

A spokesman for the ENO said nothing had been confirmed, and that he had no knowledge of Sunset Boulevard.

 

 Footie match that led to star signing

Director and writer Paul Andrew Williams did not have to look far to find a leading man for his first venture as a playwright.

Williams plays for a knock-about North London football team made up of actors and other showbiz folk. So, too, does Tom Hughes, who was just on BBC TV in the spy drama The Game.

‘I asked him to do a read through of my play,’ said Williams who, by his own admission, sticks to the ‘Subbuteo no-running area’, while Hughes is a solid striker.

Tom Hughes, who was just on BBC TV in the spy drama The Game, plays with director Paul Williams in a football team

Tom Hughes, who was just on BBC TV in the spy drama The Game, plays with director Paul Williams in a football team

Williams made the films London To Brighton and A Song For Marion. He came up with the idea for his play, Ticking, when he thought about what would happen if you had just one hour left to live.

‘What would you choose to say to your family? All families have secrets. What would be revealed? Certain actions by your family can influence your life,’ he said of Ticking, which sees Hughes’s character in a foreign jail, awaiting execution.

His parents will be played by Niamh Cusack and Anthony Head, with David Michaels taking the part of a lawyer. The play begins a five-week run at Trafalgar Studios on October 6.

Williams said that he and producer Melissa Wilkins are working on the drama purely as a theatre piece; but he noted that it could well become a film one day ‘if it doesn’t bomb on stage’.

James Bierman, who is Michael Grandage’s business partner, has been offering informal, unofficial advice to theatre novice Williams.

Hughes, who studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, was on stage at the Donmar last year in Versailles.

Williams said that he’s monitoring Hughes’s footie games because he doesn’t want him injured. ‘Right now, he’s the best looking he’s ever been,’ he joked.

 
Olivier award-winning actor John Dagleish has been recruited into the ranks of the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company

Olivier award-winning actor John Dagleish has been recruited into the ranks of the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company

 John joins Judi and Ken

The enormity of it all suddenly dawned on Olivier award-winning actor John Dagleish. ‘It’s kind of ridiculous to think that I’m going to be in a rehearsal room with Judi Dench and Kenneth Branagh!’ he said when we talked about how he has been recruited into the ranks of the Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company.

He will play opposite the aforementioned theatre giants in The Winter’s Tale, as conman Autolycus: a role that requires him to play different parts because the character is often in disguise.

Dagleish won the best actor in a musical trophy for his portrayal of Ray Davies in the award-winning Sunny Afternoon (which is extending its run at the Harold Pinter Theatre till April 2016). He said he got the part of Autolycus after Branagh saw him as The Kinks’ frontman.

In Winter’s Tale he’ll sing some songs with Jessie Buckley, who plays Perdita. ‘I sat around the piano with Jessie, who has this stunning, jazzy, breathy voice,’ he said.

Shakespeare’s play will be performed in repertory at the Garrick Theatre from October 17, with Terence Rattigan’s Harlequinade, in which Dagleish will play a policeman. 


 

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