West End Look Ahead: Stars From ’Succession’ And ‘The Crown’ Prepare To Tread The Boards As Nicole Scherzinger Sets Sights On Broadway For ‘Sunset Boulevard’ Revival

EXCLUSIVE: Starring an electrifying Nicole Scherzinger, Sunset Boulevard ends its limited run at London’s Savoy Theatre on January 6. However, Deadline can reveal in its 2024 West End look ahead that the singer will lead the Andrew Lloyd Webber show to Broadway in November, according to insiders connected with the production.

Scherzinger, who won the Evening Standard’s best musical performance prize for her show-stopping turn as Norma Desmond, has indicated to producers that she will commit to a six-month season in New York, we understand. The ES also recently named the show’s helmer Jamie Lloyd as Best Director [Disclosure: this writer is a member of the ES judging panel].

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Meanwhile, another ES winner, Jack Thorne’s glorious drama The Motive and the Cue, staged by Sam Mendes, has transferred from London’s National Theatre to the Noël Coward, and we can also reveal The Motive and the Cue is in the early stages of discussions for a run in NYC.

The play explores what happened when John Gielgud directed Richard Burton as Hamlet on Broadway in 1964, and how the actor’s wife Elizabeth Taylor influenced the proceedings. Johnny Flynn (One Life, Beast) and Tuppence Middleton (Mank, Downton Abbey: A New Era) portray Burton and Taylor with Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, Good Omens) giving a performance for the ages as Gielgud, and it’s likely these thespians will repeat their roles in Manhattan.

‘Sunset Boulevard’

The Sunset Boulevard revival does not at all resemble the original London production directed by Trevor Nunn, choreographed by Bob Avian and starring a breathtaking Patti LuPone. Lloyd has stripped it down to its bare essentials. Gone are big sets and Norma Desmond’s extravagant gowns.

Scherzinger appears on stage in a silk slip and simply sizzles as Desmond. The director has certainly found new ways to dream, to borrow a line from Billy Wilder’s 1950 classic film and a lyric from the show’s book by Don Black and Christopher Hampton.

Lloyd Webber’s re-orchestrated score is allowed to soar. A long-rumored screen adaptation, set to star Glenn Close who won a Tony for her interpretation, has been put on hold and there has been a lot of chatter about the possibility of Scherzinger taking on the role should a feature get the green light.

Much will depend on how Scherzinger fares on Broadway.

The National Theatre, under the leadership of artistic chief Rufus Norris, has enjoyed a string of recent successes with several shows playing to packed houses at its home on the South Bank, and in transfers to the West End.

What else To The West End?

Along with the aforementioned The Motive and the Cue, other productions headed to the West End in 2024 include:

Standing at the Sky’s Edge, an acclaimed musical featuring music and lyrics by rocker Richard Hawley, and a book by Chris Bush, opens at the Gillian Lynne Theatre from February 8. The show charts the hopes and dreams of three generations who reside in a brutalist public housing apartment block in the South Yorkshire city of Sheffield. Since originating at Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre, followed by a sold-out season at the National, Standing at the Sky’s Edge has won a South Bank Show Sky Arts Award [this reporter sat on that awards panel too] and an Olivier Award for best new musical.

The Witches, a musical by Lucy Kirkwood and Dave Malloy, and directed by Lyndsey Turner, is based on the book by Roald Dahl. It won rave notices when it opened at the National’s Olivier Theatre in November. The play runs at the NT until January 27. The National and the Roald Dahl Story Company are considering next steps regarding possible transfers to the West End and Broadway, but the musical’s creative team will work on The Witches‘ second act before any firm decisions are made.

‘Succession’ & ‘Crown’ Stars Tread The Boards

Elsewhere, after four seasons in Jesse Armstrong’s HBO hit Succession, a succession of cast members, including Brian Cox, who played ruthless patriarch Logan Roy, and Sarah Snook, his daughter Shiv, are opening in plays in London in 2024.

Harriet Walter, who plays Lady Caroline, mother of Roy offspring Shiv, Jeremy Strong’s Kendall and Kieran Culkin’s Roman, is ahead of them. She’s currently starring at the National in Rebecca Frecknall’s production of Federico Garcia Lorca’s The House of Bernardo Alba. A co-production with Playful Productions, there’s talk of that transferring into town during 2024.

Snook returns to the London stage post-Succession taking on 26 roles in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, adapted and directed by Kip Williams. The show begins performances for a 14-week season at the Theatre Royal Haymarket from February 6. It has its eye on Broadway too. The show started out at the Sydney Theatre Company in Australia.

Cox joins Patricia Clarkson (Sharp Objects, Gary, She Said) in Eugene O’Neill’s masterpiece Long Day’s Journey Into Night at the Wyndham’s Theatre for a limited season running from March 19-June 8. Anthony Boyle (Tetris, Masters of the Air) and Daryl McCormack (Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Bad Sisters, Peaky Blinders) make up the remaining members of the dysfunctional Tyrone clan.

But British dysfunctional royals are not about to be outdone by the Roys.

Imelda Staunton (Paddington, Vera Drake), who portrayed House of Windsor matriarch Queen Elizabeth II in two seasons of The Crown, will show off her considerable musical theater chops in a revival of the Jerry Herman and Michael Stewart musical Hello,Dolly for a 10-week run at the mighty London Palladium, owned by Lloyd Webber.

Directed by Dominic Cooke — with Staunton playing matchmaker Dolly Levi — the play will begin performances at the Palladium on July 6. Producer Michael Harrison has stressed to Deadline that Staunton and the show, at least for now, is London only.

Another Crown alum, Dominic West, who played Staunton’s screen son and heir Prince Charles, now King Charles, is following in mummy’s footsteps by stepping on stage in a revival of Arthur Miller’s riveting A View From the Bridge.

This one is playing outta town at the Theatre Royal Bath’s Ustinov Studio for a month from March 16. West is joined in the Lindsay Posner-directed play by Kate Fleetwood (The Wheel of Time), Martin Marquez (Modus), Callum Scott Howells (It’s a Sin) and Santino Smith (Moorcroft).

Casts from the houses of Windsor and Roy will no doubt exchange greetings — no four-letter words from the Roys in the presence of Her Majesty, thank you! — at the Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton on January 7, where the disparate families are up for Globes gongs.

Elsewhere, Jonny Lee Miller, who portrayed Prime Minister John Major in The Crown, and Sex Education’s Tanya Reynolds head to the Trafalgar Theatre from January 22 in Sam Holcroft’s A Mirror, staged by Jeremy Herrin. This is a transfer from the Almeida Theatre.

Woody Harrelson (True Detective, White House Plumbers) and Andy Serkis (The Batman, Black Panther, Lord of the Rings) are acting up a storm in David Ireland’s new dark comedy Ulster American at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, West London, through January 27, another play directed by Herrin.

Matt Smith (House of the Dragon, Last Night In Soho), who originated the role of Prince Philip opposite Claire Foy’s QE2 in the initial two seasons of The Crown, can be seen in Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, directed by Thomas Ostermeier at the Duke of York’s Theatre from February 6. He’s joined by Jessica Brown Findlay (Flatshare, Downton Abbey), Nigel Lindsay (The Capture, The Lehman Trilogy), Paul Hilton (Lady Macbeth, Slow Horses) and Shubham Saraf (A Suitable Boy, The Father and the Assassin).

Sheridan Smith (Four Lives, No Return), Hadley Fraser (The Gold, The Lehman Trilogy), Nicola Hughes (Porgy and Bess, Into the Woods) and Amy Lennox (Cabaret) lead Opening Night, a new show by Ivo van Hove and Rufus Wainwright, based on John Cassavetes’ 1977 movie of the same name.

Broadway and Hollywood royalty Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex and the City, And Just Like That…) and Matthew Broderick (Painkiller, The Producers) bring their New York production of Neil Simon’s comedy Plaza Suite to the Savoy Theatre from January 15.

Sam Mendes directs the world premiere of Jez Butterworth’s drama The Hills of California at the Harold Pinter from January 27. Play stars Laura Donnelly (The Ferryman, Outlander), Leanne Best (Line of Duty, Sweat), Ophelia Lovibond (Rocketman, Minx) and Helena Wilson (Jack Absolute Flies Again).

Lindsay Duncan leads a rare revival of Dodie Smith’s Dear Octopus into the National Theatre from February 7. Billy Howle (The Serpent, Dunkirk), Kate Fahy (A Spy Among Friends) and Bessie Carter (Bridgerton) also star in the production being directed by Emily Burns.

Also at the National, Michael Sheen (The Queen) stars in Tim Price’s new play Nye about post-war UK politician Aneurin “Nye” Bevan, regarded as the father of Britain’s National Health Service. It’s being directed by Rufus Norris who will stand down as the National Theatre’s artistic chief in 2025. Indhu Rubasingham, of London’s Kiln Theatre, is Norris’ successor. Nye runs at the NT from February 24-May 11.

Lorraine Ashbourne (Sherwood, Bridgerton)and Sinead Matthews (Hullraisers, The Crown) star in Beth Steel’s new drama Till the Stars Come Down directed by Bijan Sheibani in the NT’s Dorfman Theatre from January 26.

Sonia Friedman, the prominent West End and Broadway producer, has joined forces with Netflix to present Stranger Things: The First Shadow, featuring breathtaking stagecraft overseen by director Stephen Daldry, which is running at the Phoenix Theatre. We recently revealed that there are plans for it to open on Broadway, plus there are highly sourced rumors The First Shadow will be the first part of a trilogy of Stranger Things shows based on the Netflix drama created by the Duffer brothers.

Looking further ahead to 2025, Friedman recently announced that her Sonia Friedman Productions, Studiocanal and Eliza Lumley on behalf of Universal Music UK are developing Paddington: The Musical, based on Michael Bond’s popular books and director Paul King’s Paddington movies by Studiocanal and Heyday Films. Luke Sheppard will direct the show that’s set to music and lyrics by Tom Fletcher and book by Jessica Swale. Sheppard is also staging Live Aid musical Just For One Day at the Old Vic. It runs January 26-March 30, 2024.

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