Theatre review: The Devil Wears Prada

For the second week in a row Phill and I went to a show we'd had tickets to for over a year, and after that wait we can now definitively say that Elton John (music,) Shania Taub & Mark Sonnenblick (lyrics) and Kate Weatherhead's (book) The Devil Wears Prada is a thing that happened on a stage, while we were facing in its direction. Based on the novel by Lauren Weisberger and particularly the 2006 David Frankel film adaptation, it's a Ronseal musical: It does exactly what it says on the tin, no more, no less. Georgie Buckland plays Andy, the aspiring journalist who's been unable to break into the industry in the way she'd hoped, so as a last-ditch attempt somehow wangles a job many young women are fighting over: Second Assistant to Miranda Priestly (Vanessa Williams,) fearsome editor-in-chief of fashion magazine Runway.

Despite her open contempt for the job, Andy gets sucked into the fashion world, getting a makeover from creative director Nigel (Matt Henry) and starting to eclipse First Assistant Emily (Amy Di Bartolomeo) by managing to pull off the actually impossible tasks Miranda regularly sets her. Meanwhile her relationship with boyfriend Nate (Rhys Whitfield) suffers, although given his entire personality is "human male who is currently breathing" it's a wonder she can tell the difference.

I've rewatched the film some time in the last year, probably around the time this adaptation was announced, so it was recent enough that I was reminded how much it embodies one of my most hated American tropes: To my mind, one of the most rabidly right-wing things about Hollywood is the way work-based stories normalise and rarely question the USA's notoriously poor working conditions and rights, pushing the idea that employees should be monomaniacally obsessed with their work 24/7, fiercely loyal to the extent that looking for a better job elsewhere is tantamount to treason, while it's understood that they themselves can be fired at any time on the slightest pretext†.

At least this story acknowledges that the person driving this toxic culture is the villain, with the title full-on calling her the Devil, but the fact remains that nobody questions this - only the bad-guy money men Christian (James Darch) and Irv (Josh Damer-Jennings) even suggest that Miranda might have too much power. It's not quite as pronounced here as in the film, but it's still there, plus I find it particularly irritating that the show still uses the British character as the one most accepting and pushing of the toxic workplace, handily implying that This Is Fine pretty much everywhere. Under normal circumstances I'd be a bit sus about career woman Emily's happy ending being getting rescued by Hot Nurse (Liam Marcellino) but anything that gets her away from killing herself for Miranda's benefit is a plus, and finding the good D is the least she deserves‡.

If it seems like I'm being distracted from talking about the actual show that wouldn't be far off: There's little that's actually wrong with Jerry Herman's production, with Tim Hatley's sets and Gregg Barnes' costumes helping to make some strong setpiece visuals (although given the subject matter, shouldn't the latter be not just good but downright show-stopping? We were in the very back row of a cavernous building, maybe the outfits make an impact up close but even so, you'd think something would stand out.) The cast are strong, Williams getting her claws into being the queen bitch and Henry making the most out of an underwritten, very dated-feeling queer character who exists to be a likeable doormat¶. On the other hand although Whitfield has, as mentioned, been given absolutely zero to work with, I can't imagine anyone's ever had a more devastating review than when he took his shirt off to do his big number, and a huge room full of women and gays failed to have any reaction whatsoever§.

But especially after Mean Girls, which so effectively kept the feel of the original script while reinventing it for its new medium, it feels particularly stark that Weatherhead's book is an edited retread of Aline Brosh McKenna,'s screenplay, interrupted by songs none of which are bad, but few of which stand out: A lot of the numbers feel generic, with the best ones being those are most recognisably Elton John's, but I never felt like I was in a  hurry to hear any of them again. And there's too many of them, one of those musicals where we increasingly feel the story has barely moved on before it's interrupted by someone else singing their feelings. So yes, a show that gives you exactly what you would have expected, with no surprises and no obvious artistic reason for why anyone wanted to tell this story, in this medium, at this time.

The Devil Wears Prada by Elton John, Shania Taub, Mark Sonnenblick and Kate Weatherhead is booking until the 31st of May at the Dominion Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Matt Crockett.

†tell me you haven't seen "the boss is an asshole and... he's standing right behind me isn't he? I'm fired, aren't I?" *sad trombone* played for laughs a hundred times

‡as long as we don't focus too much on the throwaway suggestion that he's OK with enabling her eating disorder

¶"you don't understand, I faced homophobia when I was younger and Miranda deigned to accept me in the notoriously homophobic and butch world of *checks notes* fashion, therefore she's entitled to actively ruin my life on a whim in perpetuity"

§but that's what you get when you aim for tousled Adrian Grenier hair and end up with Farrah hair