The Devil Wears Prada

Based on the 2003 novel by Lauren Weisberger and subsequent 2006 film, The Devil Wears Prada now struts its way to the West End. After a run in Chicago in 2022, this revamped production has direction by Jerry Mitchell, music by Academy-Award winner Elton John, lyrics by Tony winner Shaina Taub (SUFFS) and Mark Sonnenblick, and an adapted book by Kate Wetherhead.

Gird your loins and discover whether I found to be a trending setting musical, or as groundbreaking as florals for spring!

I was gifted a press ticket in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Cast

Miranda Priestly: Vanessa Williams
Andy Sachs: Georgie Buckland
Nigel: Matt Henry
Emily: Amy di Bartilomeo
Nate: Rhys Whitfield
Christian: James Darch

Rating: ★★

What is The Devil Wears Prada about?

Fresh out of college, aspiring journalist Andy scores a job at the prestigious Runway magazine working for fashion’s most powerful and terrifying icon — editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly. Sacrificing her personal life to meet Miranda’s impossible demands, Andy finds herself seduced by the glamorous world she once despised. How far will she go to succeed…and will it be worth selling her soul to get what she’s always wanted?

What are my thoughts on The Devil Wears Prada?

With its Chicago run failing to update The Devil Wears Prada to the 2020s, having a director like Jerry Mitchell retool the show while capturing the film’s spirit makes sense as he’s familiar with bringing films to the stage. However, what Mitchell achieved with Legally Blonde (leaning into a silly tone while carrying honest emotion and expanding on the characters) feels like a distant memory as The Devil Wears Prada feels more in line with his work for Pretty Woman (spoiler alert: it’s not good). Kate Weatherhead’s adapted script takes scenes verbatim from the film yet they don’t carry the same bite, instead lines being delivered broadly to near parody merely because audiences are expecting them to be uttered.

Adapting a film to the stage is often an opportunity for change and expansion, but Weatherhead’s script and Mitchell’s direction for The Devil Wears Prada instead cuts down to the point of damaging character arcs. Andy’s circle is reduced to her boyfriend Nate, and no scenes of Miranda’s home life appear, making a later moment of vulnerability carry less honesty. Even when updating outdated elements i.e. the body shaming towards Andy, others such as Emily’s heavily implied eating disorder are played straight for laughs. None of this is helped by the inconsistent framing – it wants to highlight workplace toxicity but can’t help indulging in its glitzy perks.

Elton John may be a big name already guaranteed to fill seats, but the score he created for The Devil Wears Prada is far from his best work. Feeling like a back catalogue of cut demos, they range from generic disco to power ballads that get louder to show off the actors’ vocal range, presumably to distract from Shaina Taub’s clunky lyrics filled with exposition and paper thin character motivations. It’s hard to believe the writer of SUFFs came up with such a groan-inducing rhyme as ‘Prada’ and ‘nada’. Further to this are the moments The Devil Wears Prada does (or doesn’t) choose to musicalise, one egregious number devoted to Nate and Andy singing about loving each other’s bodies.

With The Devil Wears Prada being a story all about haute couture fashion, Gregg Barnes’ costumes are their own character – for the wrong reasons. Rather than an opportunity to play with and emulate 2000s trends (it is explicitly set in 2005), the show has a confusing mishmash of dead ringers from the film i.e. Andy’s frumpy cerulean jumper, 2010s fashion trends i.e. peplum tops, asymmetrical skirts, and catwalk dresses that feel like Project Runway rejects. To say nothing of an inexplicable appearance of a 2020s YSL Bag as someone on my TikTok commented.

What’s the cast like?

In what sounds like a genius piece of meta casting, Vanessa Williams jumps from one iconic magazine editor, Wilhelmina Slater, to another as Miranda Priestly. Garnering wild applause as soon as she enters through a trap door (one of only two times – a missed opportunity for a funny running gag), but only highlights how the two feel cut from the same cloth. While having the most iconic speeches and gripping the audience with an icy cold stare, Williams never has a moment to truly shine acting-wise or vocally and feels relegated to a supporting role.

Georgie Buckland, while having all the makings of a West End star and superb vocals, feels let down in a severely underwritten Andy. Constantly singing about her wishes to be a once in a generation writer, she starts off feeling less naive ingenue in need of a hard reality check and more the stereotype of an overly entitled millennial who needs taking down a peg. As a result, it makes her rushed change into a workaholic ‘Miranda Girl’ feel less sudden or authentic. Rhys Whitfield is also wasted as Nate who’s relegated to supportive boyfriend who mildly tells her off.

Olivier winner Matt Henry is a delightfully sassy Nigel who manages to add humour and heart as Andy’s mentor while adding pizzazz to Dress Your Way Up before a heartfelt if somewhat generic solo about growing up in a small homophobic town (because when isn’t that every gay man’s backstory?). If anything, a later plot development makes me wish the show focused more on Nigel instead of Andy.

However, if there is one performer people should be talking about leaving The Devil Wears Prada, it’s Amy di Bartilomeo (Six) as Emily. As soon she comes onstage to tell the audience to put their phones away (not before taking a picture of her next to the sign), not talk and be generally annoying, she just gets funnier from there. Making Emily all her own, she makes you empathise with her workaholic tendencies to an extent and desperate need for approval, all on top of showcasing her stratospheric vocals – even her opera skills at one point!

What are my overall thoughts?

As shallow, vapid and gaudy as Andy first perceives the fashion world to be, The Devil Wears Prada is only what I can call a haute mess that needs some serious tailoring. Playing it way too safe musically and story-wise, what feels like the biggest shame is its original book’s cutting expose of the fashion industry now feels lost in yet another bloated and cynical screen to stage adaptation cashing in on an established IP and famous names they can plaster on the marquee. God, I wish there were transfers of Death Becomes Her and Beetlejuice ASAP.

If Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly were watching it, I can imagine her walking away mumbling to her assistant what a goddamn travesty it was before asking her to book that restaurant she liked.