Some people are reflexively cynical about musicals adapted from movies, suggesting they’re cynical cash grabs that take money and attention away from original ideas. But they deserve a fair hearing. For starters, it’s hard and expensive to make any musical, and few make serious money – nobody does it because it’s low hanging fruit.
Moreover, live musical theatre is a very different medium to film, and at best the appeal of screen to stage lies in seeing a story that was great in one medium be great in another, for different reasons. It’s about familiarity, but it’s also about discovery, reinvention, about leading an audience onto something new by way of something they already like. Heck, Stephen Sondheim’s final musical is technically a movie adaptation, and if it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for you, peasant,
The Devil Wears Prada had me flummoxed, though. It is, of course, an adaptation of the 2006 millennial classic about a mousy young journalism graduate who blunders into the job of PA to a tyrannical, Anna Wintour-alike fashion editor (the film was itself an adaptation of Vogue-alumnus Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel). The songs are by none other than Elton John, with lyrics by Shania Taub and Mark Sonnenblick. The director-choreographer is Broadway veteran Jerry Mitchell. There’s some serious talent involved.
And yet being turned into a musical does… almost nothing for it.
It had a troubled birth. It originally debuted in Chicago in 2022 and was scheduled to go to Broadway but deemed not up to scratch – the original director was ditched and old hand Mitchell was brought in.
The problem perhaps lies in the fact that the film already had the archness and acid one liners of a classic musical comedy. It needs to be pushed further, turned into something more, if there’s going to be any point to doing this. Instead Mitchell’s production is simply a nice evocation of the movie, with the zingy repartee constantly interrupted by characters insisting on singing, frequently more to comment on the action than to move it along.
Another issue is that while Elton John is an arresting name on the credits, he’s famously not a lyricist. Largely operating outside of his piano-based comfort zone – it’s more of an electro pop type affair – there’s very little of him obviously discernible in the show. A healthy injection of his DNA might have been just the thing to make a musical version of The Devil Wears Prada stand out. But you’d never guess his involvement if you didn’t know already.
On the plus side, it’s very well cast. The most obvious danger was being unable to top Meryl Streep’s iconic performance as ruthless magazine editor Miranda Priestly. But US star Vanessa Williams is terrific in the role, channelling the fundamentals of what made Streep great while offering a more economical, no nonsense take – more ruthless shark than Steep’s venomous serpent. Amy di Bartolomio is a hoot as Miranda’s prissy English aide Emily – louder and less weird than Emily Blunt’s scene-stealing film turn, but it’s the right decision for the format. Matt Henry is endearing and soulful as nice guy Nigel.
It’s only youngster Georgie Buckland as Andy who disappoints a touch. She is absolutely fine, but she’s more or less doing an Anne Hathaway impression – unlike the other leads, who manage to bring something new to the characters.
Some of the songs are enjoyable – Miranda’s early patter-style number in which she sets out her ruthless stall is good vampy fun – and some are pretty catchy: the two-part Greek chorus-like ‘In or Out’ is an earworm. But the story simply doesn’t need them, isn’t built to accommodate them, loses pace when the singing starts.
It’s a shame we live in a world in which a glossy commercial stage adaptation of a film needs to be a musical, because The Devil Wears Prada would have hit the spot as a slick stage play. But the people require songs, and songs have been provided, and basically we’re left with a deft comedy that breaks off to step on a rake every five minutes.
