The New Yorker magazine cover pinned to the cosy bedsit wall of Andy and her beau Nate’s dear little homestead bears an image of the Manhattan skyline, showing a cluster of elegant highrises set against the midnight city sky. Beyond the couple’s intimate abode, on the wider stage, just such a dazzle of glorious, soaring high-rises materialises.
New York, New York, what a wonderful town. And, don’t forget, a razzle-dazzle new musical adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada reminds us: it takes something of your inner soul to flourish and succeed in it.
Andy is portrayed with all-singing, all-dancing verve by the frankly inexhaustible Georgie Buckland (impressively making her West End debut), while Nate, a sous-chef, is played with equal all-singing, all-dancing verve by the frankly scrumptious Rhys Whitfield. They have been put through their paces by Jerry Mitchell, the director and choreographer.
Andy, who really wants to tap her inner strength and create novels that speak to the people – but is looking for a job in the meantime – is at the end of her rope. Her job scout has set her up with Miranda Priestly (the comically icy Vanessa Williams), who she actually hasn’t heard of. Miranda, who? She is the editor-in-chief of Runway, the ne plus ultra of glossy magazines, that’s who.
Long story short, Andy gets the job that so many, many girls have fought for, and her troubles – and successes? – begin.
But just like the Christmas panto they are belting out down the road from the Dominion Theatre, it takes a lot of singing and dancing and costumes to achieve her goal. For a start, there is Emily (the tirelessly comic Amy Di Bartolomeo), who is the keeper of the flame of all things Miranda as assistant numero uno, and is frankly horrified at Andy’s nondescript clothes and unspeakable hair.
“It’s a privilege to burn out here every day,” counsels Emily to hopeless Andy, in her resounding song “How to Survive at Runway” (music by Elton John, no less, lyrics by Shaina Taub and Mark Sonnenblick). “The rewards,” she adds, “make every sacrifice feel small.”
A saviour beckons, however: sweet Nigel (Matt Henry), the creative director of Runway, waves his wand and exercises a makeover for Andy. The rather chic (I thought, but what do I know?) Marc Jacobs-esque ’30s outfit with the canvas belt that the whole Runway team is appalled by is banished, to be replaced by a fitted white shirt under a tight black jumper, shiny black legging pants, and heels! Her hopelessly scrunchy long hair is made sleek and cropped shoulder length, and she is ready for her new life. Didn’t Nigel do well? Andy also gets to delve into the fashion closet, racks and racks and racks of glittering clothes, where three girls in beige suits (their shoulder lines crusted with sumptuous rhinestone glitter, which at least looks fun) are the égérie at the gate.
For those of you who relished the 2006 movie, there are some keynotes that you will recognise. Who can forget Miranda’s diatribe on cerulean blue? (It’s captured here with all Miss Williams’s steely focus.) And Andy must lay hands on the latest (unpublished) Harry Potter book, so that Miranda’s twins will have their curiosities satisfied, or face the sack. Will she, won’t she? Luckily, the suave Christian (James Darch), whom she met in her earlier, frumpy look (going unnoticed by him at the time), has the answer.
Then there is the sensational gala at the end of act one. Nigel escorts Miranda to the ball, where the guests are in devilish, funereal black and crepuscular carmine, and I don’t know where they are going dressed like that, but I’d rather not go. Miranda, however, wears a sheath of strident red skin-tight sequins, with a crimson damask coat arranged just so over her shoulders. (Miss Williams’s important clothes are fashioned by Pamella Roland.) Poor Nigel doesn’t have time to change from his office look, but he does get to don a marvellous trained opera coat with glittering edges over his office-appropriate-but-black-tie-suitable black and rust ombré jumper.
That opera coat, by the way, has more than a hint of André Leon Talley, the legendary and lamented onetime Vogue editor, about it. So too does Nigel’s song, “Seen”, about growing up in Kalamazoo and turning from the bullies towards the faces in Runway magazine: “Seen, finally seen, crowned as prince by the fashion queen… Runway lets me express to the world the way I want to be seen…” But there the resemblance, alas, ends.)
It is 2006-ish, and so the fashion world is geared towards that other city of dreams, with its clothes and designers: Paris. The Eiffel Tower rises in the background, just outside Andy’s (quite astonishing) bedroom window. (How does she get to stay in a magnificent suite at a Paris hotel with a wardrobe of couture? Well, this is all fantasy, after all.) The audience has to cling on for dear life: Andy’s rollercoaster life is moving faster than fast. Nate is left behind. How will it all turn out?
At the time The Devil Wears Prada hit bookshelves, I was a dozen years into my Vogue life. Working at Vogue, I was kissed with absolute magic. But as it turns out, I was a very long way from the world of Runway.
