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Mickey Jo
I have to assume for the majority of the people going to see the Devil Wears Prada musical, this is delivering everything that they need it to. It's fun, it's flashy, it's very stylish, but that's all. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back. My name is Mickey Jo and I'm obsessed with all things theater. I am a professional theater critic here on social media. Hello to you if you are watching this video on my theater themed YouTube channel. Hello to you if you are listening to this on a podcast platform. As of right now, the embargo has lifted on reviews for the Devil Wears Prada the Musical, the latest arrival in London's West End. It has just opened at the Dominion Theater. And so that is what we're going to be talking about in today's new review. Now, this is the European premiere of the show. It's a slightly new production because it technically had its world premiere in Chicago in a production that isn't really talked about anymore because it wasn't received particularly well. However, with a completely new cast and a largely new creative team spearheaded by Jerry Mitchell, who has had much success in prior years with stage adaptations of popular films like Legally Blonde, like Pretty Woman, like Kinky Boots, especially in the UK for all of those, has this musical adaptation managed to redeem its reputation. Now, Jerry is not the only auspicious name attached to this because Sir Elton John is a part of the creative team. It's one of two new musicals that have come to the stage recently with scores by him, the other being Tammy Faye, which was seen previously in London and just recently ran on Broadway at the Palace. And he's been joined in that writing process by some Broadway collaborators, including Shayna Taub, the two time Tony Award winning writer of the musical Suffs. And despite what I had heard about that world premiere production, I really went into this ready to be convinced by it. I thought the addition of Jerry Mitchell and everything that he was saying about, you know, no longer having it be set in the present day, as well as the new casting that had been announced, all of that left me feeling very encouraged. So all that's left is for me to tell you, did the Devil Wears Prada surpass my expectations or like Miranda Priestley herself was, I left feeling disappointed. You will find out in today's brand new full length review where we'll be discussing the material, the staging and of course, those performances. Now, if you enjoy this review, make sure to subscribe if you're watching here on YouTube and turn on the post notifications so that YouTube can let you know on your device every time I share a new video. If you haven't noticed, in the month of December I am sharing new full length theatre themed content every single day because there is so much for me to talk about. Between West End openings, my recent trip to New York and the Wicked movie, I am swamped over here and if you're listening to me as a podcast, make sure to follow me over there as well. You can also find me on other social media platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Blue sky and Threads. And finally, if you have already been to see the Devil Wears Prada either at the Dominion Theatre in some of its first few weeks of performances or during its out of town UK run at the Theatre Royal in Plymouth, let us know what you thought in the comments section down below. Particular particularly if you disagree with what I think. Anyhow, enough chatter. Let us discuss the Devil Wears Prada the musical in the West End. Is it any good? So I'm going to give you some very brief minimal context for this one. I dare say many of us already know what this is based on and what the story is, but the Devil Wears Prada, the musical is Based on the 2006 iconic popular film starring Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt, as well as Stanley Tucci. Love a bit of Stanley Tuch, that film being based on the allegedly semi autobiographical graphical 2003 novel by Lauren Weisberger, allegedly loosely based on her time spent working at Vogue magazine alongside Anna Wintour. And it depicts a young woman named Andrea Sachs who is eager to make it as a legitimate journalist writing for someone like the New Yorker. But the interview that she ends up getting the job that she ends up getting is at a fashion magazine called Runway, which thinly parodies Vogue, Thinley actually being a very appropriate word for the fashion industry, as it's depicted in the Devil Wears Prada. And she is the second assistant to the editor in chief, Miranda Priestley, who is both respected and feared throughout the office. And Andrea is working alongside her very eager, very ambitious and slightly crazed assistant, Emily. Now she's initially indifferent both to the fashion world and how seriously they take it, as well as the general ethos of the magazine and the people who work there. But through various circumst she begins to take her job more seriously and becomes more determined to achieve something there, and she undergoes something of a transformation herself where she becomes externally more glamorous and perhaps internally a little more jaded, a little more vapid, a Little more shallow. Ultimately, it's the realities that she will discover about Miranda and her life and the way that she has to go through the world that will change Andrea's mind, Andy's mind about her future at the company. But that's the plot of the Devil Wears Prada and it's been in development for a stage adaptation, like I said, for a few years. There was that Chicago production which was really not received very well, partially, as I understand it, for anyone curious, because they recontextualized the story to the modern day, as well as casting Miranda's staff and assistants, at least the ones that we know by name, with performers of color and casting a white actress as Miranda, making her treatment of them feel a little like racial microaggressions. But with minimal PR mention of that production. And like I said, a new creative team attached. The show has changed plans and opened in London's West End at one of the biggest theaters in the West End. The Dominion is huge and we haven't really seen an open ended run attempted there since the Prince of Egypt. Everything that's come subsequently has been a little limited season. So it's going to be very interesting to see if the Devil Wears Prada is capable of filling this auditorium as well as it fills the stage. And it fills the stage very well. But we'll talk about that now before we continue on and I tell you what I thought of the material and of this production, I do want to address a complaint to criticism that I keep hearing about films being adapted for stage musicals. This idea that everything that's being announced these days is all big new musicals based on pre existing films. And what I will say is that those are often the ones that end up getting the most media coverage. They're the ones that have the larger budgets attached to them. They're more commercial, so you hear about them more, so you see the posters. I think a lot of those people aren't necessarily aware of the many beautiful, original new musicals happening on either side of the Atlantic. But also it's, it's kind of a generational thing as well, because this just feels very commercial to us. It isn't to say that there haven't been musicals based on films for a really long time. And I know they're not as commercial properties either on stage or in their original films, but the likes of Sunset Boulevard, A Little Night Music, Hairspray are all very popular, well loved stage musicals based on films. And even something like Legally Blonde I think is the gold standard of the modern film adapted for commercial, popular musical theater. Legally Blonde, of course, having had the same director as the Devil Wears Prada. But if we look at the last few decades of those adaptations, there is really a tier list here in terms of how successful they have been. And I have been vocal about my thoughts about the likes of Mrs. Doubtfire, for example, and Pretty Woman, both of which I found heartfelt and charming in their own ways, but both of which have their acknowledgeable shortcomings. Kinky Boots is a stronger show. Waitress is a stronger show. Something like Sister Act, I think is fantastic. But the most immediate way for me to convey my feelings about this might be for me to tell you where I think the Devil Wears Prada falls on that scale. And I think this one is better than Pretty woman, better than Mrs. Doubtfire. It's not Legally Blonde. It's probably not quite as high as Mean Girls, which I would put below the Waitresses, the Sister X and the Kinky Boots of this world. So it exceeds Pretty Woman, but kind of only just. And here is the big reason why. Now, I alluded to this at the beginning, but entertainment factor for this is huge. It is campy, it is fun, it is bright, it is flashy, it is so brilliantly produced, it looks like a billion pounds. Pounds. On stage you have this talented, gorgeous cast, largely lacking in body diversity. But look where the thing is set. Going full out to deliver this entertaining and deeply stylish show. You've got these gorgeous Greg Barnes costume designs, except for everything worn by Miranda Priestley, played by Vanessa Williams. Her costumes have been designed by the fashion designer Pamela Roland. Like they've spent considerable money on this thing and they've invested in something that is so crowd pleasingly entertaining. The people who love the Devil Wears Prada and are going to go see this because they love the Devil Wears Prada are going to get something really rewarding for them. It delivers on all of those fronts. The people who are a little bit skeptical about it might stay skeptical about it. I don't know that it's going to do a lot to win over people who weren't a fan of this concept to begin with, but that's not exactly surprising. All of this being said, the major shortcoming here is it feels a little bit soulless. We don't really have anywhere to find emotional connectivity. Not with Andy, not with Miranda briefly in the second act with the character played by Matt Henry, who was played originally by Stanley Tucci in the film. And I'm delaying because I've forgotten his name. Gonna have to open this giant program. Do you see how big this is? We're gonna be here for days while I go through this program. That's not him. That's a shoe. Is it Julian? Is he Julian? Nigel. Nigel. How could I forget? And we get comedy, and we get great vocals, and we get brilliant characterization, and it's fantastic to look at. I'm going to expand on all as we carry on through this full review, but we just don't really feel anything. It feels a little soulless. And I was racking my brains about this because I was thinking, where is the moment in the film where we get the emotional investment? Where do we care? And I think it's something to do with Andrea and how she is portrayed as our protagonist as our route into this mad fashion world. And it's also. It's. It's the thing that happens with Nigel towards the end as well, but it's also discovering the humanity and the depth of Miranda as a character who has been this impenetrable ice queen. So let me talk a little about how I think we could find emotional depth in each of those areas as I tell you about the show's material. So, like I said, score by Sir Elton John, music composed by Sir Elton John with lyrics by Shayna Taub. And what I like about this one that we were only getting really a hint of with Tammy Faye is you can hear the Elton John in it. And I think he's one of the best pop stars turned musical theater composers. The scores for the Lion King and Aida, I think, are extraordinary and have such incredibly strong melodies. Are so harmonically interesting that in some of his work since, especially when he seemed to be writing a lot of musicals around the same time, we weren't getting a sense of that necessarily. But there's multiple songs in this that do grab you with a great melodic hook dressed your way up as the song is actually very Jerry Mitchell. Now that I think about it, It's a little kinky Boots familiar, which is unusual because he didn't write any of them. He's just the director. One of the earliest songs is a duet between Andy and her boyfriend, where they're jokingly singing I only want you for your body or I only love you for your body. That is very Elton John coded. It's very don't go breaking my heart. How to survive at Runway, I think, is this brilliant theatrical song sung by Amy de Bartolomeo as Emily. It's interspliced with dialogue. This is writing that understands the musical theater. Form very well and evidences great collaboration between these writers. I don't know how closely they worked. I don't know if Shayna and Elton were sitting down over an enormously expensive, like, white piano somewhere and sketching things out like it's Merrily We Roll along or if she emailed over a set of lyrics and he turned them into songs. But whatever they did, it feels cohesive and it works. It doesn't feel like those things have been awkwardly transplanted. And I really like the lyrics as I've become a huge fan of Suffs this year, but I'm not too familiar with Shayna Taub's wider body of work beyond that. And so only knowing Suff's, I was raising my eyebrow just a little bit about the concept of Shane Taub being the lyricist for the Devil Wears Prada musical. But it's great because I think she brings Andrea's voice to it, where it's smart and it's stylish, but it has this very sort of witty perspective on it. It feels slightly. It's like she's editorializing the entire thing. I like the titular number, the Devil Wears Prada. It's at this point that I started to notice. I think I wanted the orchestrations to feel a little different because this begins with Miranda and Nigel singing it while planning the seating for. I'm going to call it the Met Gala. It's not the Met Gala. It's their version of the Met Gala. It's some sort of a fancy ball happening in New York. It's the Met Gala, and it continues on the stairs on the entrance of the Not Met Gala. And they all sing it in this choral way. But it's very poppy, it's very contemporary, and I just want it to be more dramatic, more operatic. It tease. Eases at that idea a little. And it's very visually familiar of masquerade from the start of the second act of the Phantom of the Opera. I just want it to feel. I want it to sound like one of those jewellery commercials or perfume commercials, where it's very, like, grand and sweeping and dramatic. That's what I think this moment needed. And you can get something very fuller and a lot more impactful with those kind of orchestrations. Pop orchestrations are only ever gonna feel so big, especially in a theatre like the Dominion. Then we finish Act 1, a little puzzlingly with a song called Miranda Girl. And this is one of those important turning points where I think it disconnects us a little bit from Andrea's character. Emotionally speaking, it's very stylish. She sounds great on it. Georgia Berkman will talk more about this and how wonderful I think she is in this role. She sounds fantastic. It gives her a great vocal moment. What we don't get is the chance to really know her and see the vulnerability in this exact moment. Spoiler alert here. She has made the decision to stay and sort of, like, further her career. And she's not showing up to her boyfriend's birthday dinner that he has gone to great professional lengths to book at a very fancy restaurant. She's already had this visual transformation, and this is the moment where she starts to change more as a person on the inside. We've already had that. A very memorable moment from the film where Emily can't recall a certain name as they're arriving for Miranda to greet them personally. And Andy has step up to the plate. And we find out that she's actually been studying this as well, that she's actually really good at this job. And maybe this could be a life for her that's played with a little more status as a moment in the film than on stage. It's kind of thrown away here a little bit, but it's this song, Miranda Girl. I like the song. I just think it's happening in the wrong place. Like, it's something she could consider maybe a little earlier in the show. And this feels like a dramatic end of Act 1 opportunity where she's actively making a choice rather than just, like, tossing it over her shoulder and saying, maybe. Who knows? Maybe I am a Miranda girl. Because it's very nonchalant for the gravity of her situation. She's standing up. Her boyfriend, he's clearly gonna be upset about this. And, you know, she's entering. She's literally walking up the steps and entering into this world that she swore she wasn't a part of. That she swore was not indicative of who she was. And I don't think she can sing this casual a song faced with that kind of a decision. I think generally in the way that she is written and characterized throughout this show, she needs to feel a little more like an authentic, real person to us because we see the shift in her aesthetically and we see in the decisions that she makes and the arguments she begins to have with her boyfriend and just, like, the way she reacts and things. We can see a change, but we don't feel as substantial a personality shift as we do with the likes of Veronica and Heathers is one example. But any other musical theater character who starts to like K in Mean Girls, I think, does that arc better in the way that the role is written. And especially because she is our entry point. She needs to have heart and honesty and authenticity. We need her to feel like a really real person, a real human being, because she's surrounded by all of these dramatic fashion clowns who she can't relate to and she can't understand. She's just walked in off the street and she brings us in off the street with her. Emily gets a fantastic number at the start of the second act called Bon Voyage. But I'm going to talk more about Amy DeBartolomeo's stunning performance. We're going to get to her and the Olivier that she should be winning for this show. There's a highlight moment in the second act with a song called Scene sung by Nigel. This is where we do get a little more depth and humanity because he sings about having been a young, closeted, scared, gay adolescent and discovering Runway, the fashion magazine, and feeling seen by this and feeling like this is where he belongs and this awakening something in him. It's a hugely relatable moment. It doesn't have to be that you, as an audience member to this, were a young queer person. It doesn't have to be that you fell in love with the world of fashion. But it's about that awakening moment where you suddenly found your passion. And that can be a light in the darkness, or it can just be this exciting thing that you found in your life. I think we can all relate to that on some level. It's a beautiful song. It's very well sung. I think it's probably very meaningful, both for Sir Elton and for Matt Henry, who gets to sing it. The one I really mourn is the song that we don here in the second act, because this is where we find out more about the realities and the hardships of Miranda's life. We see her juggling a lot of things throughout the first act, but Andy walks in on her having just had a difficult phone conversation in her hotel room in Paris in the second act. And she is much more personally transparent with her than she has been up to this point. There's a lot of difficult things that she is encountering we don't get here. The song, the ballad that I would like to hear her sing. And we've only recently come out of the song scene, so it'd be difficult to have multiple in a row. But the scene ends and then we hear this, like, jazzy nightclub situation with a singer singing just like a Random diegetic song called your 20s. And to get that out of the substantial scene we were just in feels like a little bit of a slap in the face. There's also a lot of very poppy contemporary. I don't want to call it rap. It's more like. It's like the Real Housewife style of rap, where we're just saying words over a club beat. There's a song that's also reprised called House of Miranda. And again, stylish, entertaining, does a lot to convey the character of Miranda Priestley, but we just don't get a lot of honesty through that. And there are moments where I think we need it. The only other part of the material I haven't yet talked about is the book by Kate Weatherhead. Kate Weatherhead, who was actually part of the original Broadway company of Legally Blonde, working with director Jerry Mitchell, and who is one half of the writing team of the popular web series Submissions Only, which I was a huge fan of. I think her work on the book here is brilliant. It retains all of those iconic moments from the film. It reappropriates some of them very smartly in a couple of ways, but it ticks all of the boxes of the things that people expect to hear as they are coming to see it. We get the entire cerulean monologue where it's like you think that all of this has nothing to do with you and yada, yada, yada. It's not blue, it's not lapis, it's cerulean. We lean perhaps a little heavily on that tool. I can't remember how many different times she says it in the film. She says it an awful lot in the stage version. We get, why is no one ready? Like, we get all of those parts and some of them are slightly more theatricalized. Gerd, your loins has gone from being this little improvised murmur from Stanley Tucci to this dramatic delivery that Matt Henry offers before about turning and before Miranda rises up through this like passerelle at the front of the stage, which is a little catwalk that goes around the orchestra, by the way. And each character's dialogue is characterized very specifically to who they are. We get to know these characters very quickly, which is exactly what you need to do in this kind of a fast paced Jerry Mitchell show. My feelings about it are not dissimilar to Pretty Woman, where I wish we would musicalize some of those moments. You are not going to see the Devil Wears Prada, the film live on stage. You're going to see the Devil Wears proud of the musical. And that can be a different thing. It should be a different thing. I think it has to be a different thing. And if you look at something like Legally Blonde that Kate was in, that Jerry was directing. Some of those iconic moments. Finding out the score that she got on the LSATs though 175 that's been musicalized. Kate Weatherhead's character is the one who sang it. 175 There are so many moments like that. So much better is this iconic line reading that she gives in the film to Warner. This is so much better than that. That's become a whole song called so Much Better. There are so many moments like that in Legally Blonde. And that I think is a part of its genius. And that has been a shortcoming of many of the film to stage adaptations that have come since. I wonder, do we hear Miranda sing too soon? Should the first thing we hear Miranda sing be when she really locks in on Andy and speaks to her with that cerulean monologue? Is that the first time we hear music come out of Miranda's mouth? And should that monologue have been turned into a song? I think it would be great to get a sense. We hear it from Nigel, but we don't really hear from Miranda why she cares so much about this. Why she thinks fashion is so important. And it would be great to do a song based on that monologue that it can expand on that idea. You could even do a little pat a song when all the guests are arriving at the ball. And that's the moment Emily can't come up with the name. And then Andrea finishes the musical line. That would be a musical version of that moment. That's all I want from this. Anyway. Carrying on. Let me tell you about how fantastic this production is directed by Jerry Mitchell. So this, I think, is up there with some of the best work visually that he has done on stage. And one thing about Jerry Mitchell as a director, he is always going to give you something visually satisfying and compelling and engaging that will give you something to look at. Every second that you are looking in the direction of that stage. There is no empty space whatsoever. You have this vast ensemble of people rushing around. It's a great set design by Tim Hatley. It's lit very well. The costumes by Greg Barnes and Pamela Rowland for Miranda's outfits are so stunning, are so chic. We see visually that transformation that Andy undergoes. Very well. There's. I mean, there's like fun nods of like, Miranda will wear something first and then we'll see Emily replicate it and then we'll see Andy replicate it. Like. Like we see a lot of lingerie style, like lacy sort of negligee esque tops under a business suit. And I mean, there's just so many really stunning outfits seen on that stage. None more so than the ones we get at the entrance to the the Not Met Gala. Some of them being very dramatic and theatrical, some of them being more legitimately fashionable. We get a whole fashion show in the second act and we have ensemble members, company members, appearing in the aisles of the stalls, really using that full Dominion theater space. There's not a lot of shows even in the last few years at the venue that have been able to do that. It's a huge theater, It's a huge stage. This owns every single part of it. And that, if nothing else, is really great to see. I should also mention Gareth Owen's sound design, because I didn't think about it once. And that, I think, is the measure of a good sound design. Gareth Owen can be relied upon to do fantastic work whichever side of the Atlantic he's on. Of course. Jerry Mitchell is both director and choreographer. The dance is fantastic. It's stylish, it's poised, it's very Runway model walk esque, like. It's clearly rooted in that world, which is very smart, which is very appropriate for this show. And what I love in the staging is that it delivers the difference between the two worlds. That Andy finds herself in. This little set with her and her boyfriend, played by Reese Whitfield, is cozy, but it's also small. It's also cramped. The arguments that arise between the two of them are engineered by this uncomfortable proximity. And then when she enters into the world of Runway, it's more expansive, but it's also hectic and it's busy when she goes to the ball, it has this grandeur, it has this scale, it has this height that we haven't used in the set previously. When we enter into the second act and we go to Paris, then everything is chic and open and full of possibility and excitement and intrigue. Finally. Another thing that I love about this production is we really lean into the gay drama of it all. Like, there's so many iconic camp moments seen visually. Emily has this sequence once she is hospitalized at the top of the second act. I will say this happens off stage, which I have mixed feelings about, because even. And bear with me here, the unauthorized musical parody of the Devil Wears Prada, which Marla Mendel was doing before Titanique over on the west coast of the US in like dinner theater. Even that depicted the car crash moment where Emily is hit by a car and breaks her leg. And had Marla Mendel then singing Miley Cyrus's Wrecking ball. Bouncing up and down on an exercise ball with a neck brace on. Simply iconic. This one I feel kind of chickens out a little bit. And as we've learned from Mean Girls, it's hard to show traffic collisions on stage. But I don't necessarily mind because of what we get afterwards. Which is this slightly like pain relief drug induced dream sequence moment with Amy as Emily singing from a hospital bed with a full leg cast on, flanked by Hotmail nurses. There's also much to be said for the arrival of Miranda for the first time as she rises up through that passerelle. That's also how she leaves the stage at the end. Once Andrea, spoiler alert. Has decided to leave Runway. And gets a great recommendation for her from Miranda. For the next place where she is interviewing. I say a great recommendation. Miranda, I think, calls her like incredibly disappointing or something. But then says, and if you don't hire her, you're an idiot. And it's Miranda herself who delivers that last little piece of dialogue. What I don't love is that she just walks on from the side, walks towards Andy, takes her spot and then lowers down. This is a theatrical answer to the moment in the film where they see each other for the last time. It's a great moment in the film. She sees Miranda after leaving her employment. And she looks at her from the car. She doesn't smile. There's no nod or anything. It is just enough acknowledgement of each other. And then she goes about her life. Miranda is, for all intents and purposes unchanged by their encounter. She's still going to be Miranda Priestly. But she looks at her, she sees her. She doesn't look through her like she has so many assistants in the past. She knows and recognizes and respects Andrea. Even if she doesn't quite smile with it. And I just think there needs to be more distance there. It needs to be a little bit colder. If Vanessa was to do this, this upstage and then walk down and take the spot. I just. I don't like her coming right in front and being too close to Georgie in that moment. I feel it's. It's too warm. But we do get a great mid song fashion transformation of Andy. When she's first being made over by Nigel. And we then get a number where she's singing about how great her life is. While she's in Paris and she gets a costume reveal during that as well. Like I said, campy, iconic, visually stunning. Finally then. We've been anticipating it throughout this review. Let's talk about those performances, beginning with the true leading lady of the show, Georgie Buckland, who has this breakthrough performance as Andy, and we already knew from seeing her previously on stage what a fantastic vocalist she was. She gets to showcase that very well. Here she is belting high up at the top of her range. She sounds phenomenal, great on this kind of a poppy score, but she really nails the characterization of this material as well. She understands where it lives. Tonally, we get the gradual transformation of her, I think. I think we could see, like, a little bit more of a difference between her at the beginning and then going into the second act. But there's also a little bit of subtlety to it, which you wouldn't necessarily have to bring to this material in the Devil Wears Prada. But as she's navigating some of the romantic junctions of her big life choices as she comes into contact with a journalist who she's respected for a lot of time, and there is clearly a flirtation with him. And she's on a break from her boyfriend, like it's friends, and they have this romantic liaison and she clearly has mixed feelings about it. And one of the really lovely things, actually, is her relationships with the other characters, where we see the way that she still looks out for Emily, despite the way that she's treated by Emily. We see the friendship that she builds up with Nigel, even though he's still quite sassy and indifferent towards her at the beginning. And we see the complicated relationship between her and Miranda. All of that I find fascinating. And all of it. She plays really well. She also has fantastic chemistry with Rhys Whitfield, who I think is so charming here as Andy's boyfriend. He is not well liked in the film as a character. I think Rhys redeems him in the stage version. He is. He's a lot easier to get on board with here. He sounds great in the moments that we hear him singing. Their duet together is super cute, super adorable. They've got great chemistry. And he has one of those tracks where it's a necessary component of the show, but like I said, he manages to make it charming. I think he does a great job job. Now, Georgie may be our protagonist as Andy, but there is another leading lady we must acknowledge in this show. I am talking about the iconic Miranda Priestley portrayed by Vanessa Williams. A casting decision which I think was Ingenious for so many reasons. Both because it sort of reframed the narrative that had arisen around the Chicago production in a very different way. But also, no one's making Meryl Streep comparisons. Not one person. She got asked about it on the carpet and in the press room after, afterwards. But people are not, I don't think, comparing her to Meryl Streep. Both because she's playing a role that is very similar to a role that she's played before. When she was Wilhelmina Slade, the creative director of Mode magazine, in Ugly Betty, which actually arrived on screens uncannily close to the Devil Wears Prada. I think they were both in development at the same time because they both came out in 2000, six months apart. So not only does it invite that comparison, rather than comparing her to Meryl, but she also just does it very differently. And she does it with such remarkable ease. She is so calm and poised and collected throughout this production, as she has to be. It's quite a difficult role, I think, because. Not unlike how Mary Poppins has to do everything without looking like she's breaking a sweat. So does Miranda Priestley. Not unlike the character herself. Vanessa does not have room in this show to make errors or to slip up or reveal too much of herself too early on. She's a little regal in that sense. And the way that she holds herself, the way that she delivers this material that's so incredibly natural. But also there's such a power behind it as well. I'm fascinated by her as a performer and as a personality because she commands such power and has always found the charm behind it to make it inviting. There is that little sparkle in the back of her eye. But it is also intimidating at the same time, but in a way that you love to see and that you love to root for. Essential for Miranda Priestly. We can't just think that she's an awful, obnoxious person because it wouldn't be watchable. We kind of have to be able to delight in her terrible behavior towards her assistants and the other staff at the magazine. Speaking of the other staff at the magazine, Matt Henry as Nigel for the majority of this show. It is a big, flashy, very theatrical performance playing up the camp. Quite different to Stanley Tucci in the film, just broader, just having more fun. He's got some great withering line readings to Andy where he questions why she seems to think that he's the person she can turn to in her crisis. But that moment in the second act, I already told you about when he sings the song scene is really beautiful. I also love that he offhand mentions his husband. And then there's a great line about saying, yep, Nigel has a backstory. Because so often if we see gay characters on stage, it's a coming out story or it's a queer youth story. And there's a lot of time for those and I love those. Or it's, you know, it's the focus of the thing. Something like La Car, which was groundbreaking and which is important. And when we see a gay married couple, but we see them under this context of like them having to navigate the shame game brought back to them by the arrival of this more conservative family and having to re declare and rediscover for themselves and their family. I am what I am. And Nigel is past all of that. And this is just an incidentally gay character we find out about a gay marriage, which is beautiful. And he sings this remarkable song that offers us yet more insight into the queer experience. From an angle where I don't think it's been previously considered, I should add that James Darch is another essential component of this story. It's kind of great to see something that is so female led that the men are basically just devices for her character arc. And they are each romantic devices for her character arc other than Nigel. And he plays Christian Thompson, the journalist with whom she develops this flirtation. And he does that very well. He has this kind of a one track role, but he's cast very well in that. Finally then, Amy de Bartolomeo. I was beginning to suspect as we were getting previews of this and I got to go to the media launch that this was going to be a pretty sensational performance. And you know, she's had little crumbs of comedy opportunities in the past. For the most part, Amy has been cast on stage to play these roles with big belty voices. But when she was Catherine of Aragon in six, we began to saw the comedic possibilities. When she did the lighting the piazza, we began to see the comedic possibilities and boy do we see them here. She has this wonderful pre show moment where she opens the whole thing, admonishing the audience for not taking pictures of her and then immediately turning on them and saying, now put your phones away. It's a great moment. It sets us up to love her from the often. Boy do we. She is in what is possibly my favorite character from the film and what is a lot of people's favorite character from the film. Just perfect. She is hilarious. It is so well characterized the Frenzy and the poise and the ambition and the sadness behind all of it. And the insecurity, especially going into the second act. And this sense she returns to Runway at the end, but this sense that she is finding a little more fulfillment for herself and daring to ask for more for herself from life and considering the possibility that she can get her dreams via different means than just living. For Miranda, she also sounds sensational. She has this glorious voice. Her performance of both how to Survive at Runway, which is. Is basically the number I want to go back to the show just to see and hear again. But also her dream sequence at the top of the second act. It's not only sung so, so well, but it's also performed with comedic extravagance. She arcs her leg up towards her head, the leg that has a full cast on it. It's so silly the way that she just shamelessly refers to the nurse at her bedside as hot nurse throughout the second act. Wonderful writing, perfectly delivered. She is astonishing in this role. It's another really exciting breakthrough opportunity for her, I think. I hope she gets an Olivier nomination. Honestly, I hope she wins. I think this is one of those fantastic supporting turns that just makes a show. And hers is the performance I'll be going back to see, as well as I should add, Debbie Kup, who is the alternate Miranda Priestley. Debbie Kup, who has had this fantastic career, who I love seeing on stage. I will be going back to catch her, Moran, but I think I might have to go back a couple times. And that's the thing about this show. I can criticize it and I can say, you know, there's places where I'd like to feel a little more. And this is not, I think, the best musical adaptation of any film that we've ever seen. I will still be going back. This is super watchable. This is entertaining. And I, I say once again, if you love the Devil Wears Prada and you're excited to see it as a musical, I think you're really going to like this. But those have been all of my thoughts about this brand new West End show. I hope that you enjoyed this review. I would love to hear what you all thought if you saw it in Plymouth, if you saw it in London, even if you saw it in Chicago. Let us know what you think of the Devil Wears Prada musical. I hope you've enjoyed this full theater review. Stay tuned for many more coming very soon from the West End, from Broadway, even from Paris, where I was recently, in fact, on the morning of the Devil wears Prada World AIDS de gala performance that I went to go and see. I woke up in Paris and had to travel the entire day. Slightly stressful, but that's a story for another time. In the meantime, make sure you're subscribed or following me wherever you're seeing this or hearing my voice. And I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a Stagey Day. For 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Joe Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe.