GLASGOW BOULEVARD_

GLASGOW EVENING TIMES
Glasgow is home trip for Angela

ANGELA Bradley has spent the last year of her life touring the UK with smash hit musical Sunset Boulevard.

Switching cities every three or four weeks and living out of a suitcase for 12 months has been hard work.

Which is why the 27-year-old from Cambuslang is glad that, for a few weeks at least, she can come home to her mum.

The show starts at the King's Theatre on August 7, and it will give Angela the chance to see her mum and dad, and catch up with old friends.

And she admits there will be a tear in her eye when the curtain rises on opening night.

"It's going to be very emotional for me," said Angela, who is now based in London.

"I've never performed professionally in Glasgow before - I'm really excited about it."

Sunset Boulevard is the story of Norma Desmond, a once great silent movie star now forgotten in glamorous 1950s Hollywood.

Joe Gillis, a handsome young scriptwriter on the run from a couple of loan sharks, stumbles upon Norma and her spooky servant Max in an eerie mansion on Sunset Boulevard.

Norma, intrigued by Joe, asks him to stay and help work on her comeback script. However, as time passes, Norma's infatuation with Joe becomes more dangerous - and if she ever finds out about Joe's girlfriend Betty, there will be hell to pay. Because no-one ever leaves Norma ...

For one week of the run, Angela will play Betty (the rest of the time she is a member of the ensemble supporting cast) and she is relishing the opportunity.

"It's a fantastic chance, and a happy coincidence that it has occurred during the Glasgow run," she smiled. "The actress who normally plays Betty is on holiday, and I'm first cover for the role, so I get to step in."

It's not the first time Angela has starred in a hit musical. She was one of the original cast members of Rent, and appeared in Godspell in Chichester, and La Cage Aux Folles in Germany.

"Rent was very exciting - it was a new kind of musical," explained Angela. "I wanted to do Sunset Boulevard because it's a different style altogether - much more traditional."

She is full of praise for leading lady Faith Brown, who plays Norma Desmond.

"Most people remember her as a comedy impressionist, and I think this is her saying 'look what I am capable of'. She has amazing stamina and is an inspiration.

"On the few occasions I have simply watched the show, I'm always reminded how great she is in this powerful role."

Angela says her passion for theatre began while she was at secondary school.

"I was 15 when Glasgow was City of Culture and there was so much going on, my friends and I just made the most of it," she said.

"And my school, Holyrood Secondary, had a brilliant arts set-up, in terms of music and drama, so there were loads of opportunities to get that kind of experience.

"That's how I got into the business. Many of my friends have also gone on to work professionally in the theatre, so we have a lot to be thankful for growing up in Glasgow at that time."

Angela's debut stage appearance, apart from numerous dancing displays from the age of three, was as a can-can girl in a school production of Calamity Jane.

But the versatile actress admitted she never planned to become a musical star.

"I went to drama school - Rose Bruford in London - to do straight acting, and while I can sing and dance, I'm not trained in either, so I never really imagined doing musicals," she explained.

"But it's a challenge. And as this is such a long show the challenges change all the time.

"If it's a good role, regardless of whether there is singing or not, that's what interests me."

Sunset Boulevard is a lavish, spectacular musical with 18 scene changes and more than 200 costumes, and Angela is loving the glamour of it.

"I love that whole era - Hollywood in the 50s.

"The women were so stylish.

My costumes when I play Betty are amazing.

"Our designer brought original 50s dresses back from America that had never been worn before and they are incredible.

"I love all the high-waisted skirts and feminine suits and high heels. It's so glamorous."

Sunset Boulevard runs from August 7-31 at the King's Theatre

GLASGOW EVENING TIMES
Sunset: reviewed
by Linda Robertson

Faith Brown has shaken off her funnygirl image to take centre stage in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard.

Brown plays Norma Desmond, a 1920s silent movie legend who is a faded star in 1950s Los Angeles. She's now a virtual recluse, living with butler Max in her Gothic mansion on Sunset Strip.

When Hollywood writer Joe Gillis, played by the excellent Jeremy Finch, stumbles upon her home, she becomes obsessed with the young, handsome man and persuades him to write her comeback script. Joe becomes a prisoner in her home. At first he's pacified with the sumptuous lifestyle, but soon wants out. However, Norma's infatuation runs deep and she isn't prepared to let him walk out of her life.

Brown rivetted the audience with her outstanding performance, playing the part of tortured, deluded Norma to perfection. Her powerful, spine-tingling voice was made for Webber's haunting score, which features the songs The Perfect Year and As If We Never Said Goodbye.

It's not the most light-hearted of musicals, but thanks to its strong satirical storyline, mesmerising performances and lavish sets, it's one of the very best.

This smash hit, which runs until August 31, shouldn't be missed.

GLASGOW MEDIA REVIEW
New Faith
by Gavin Docherty.

Faith Brown knows all about the highs and lows of showbusiness. During the Eighties a staple feature of the television comedy circuit, her star faded with the next decade's changing tastes in entertainment values. That's why she can say with conviction that she has a true understanding for the role of former movie queen Norma Desmond, whose tragic rise and fall is charted in the smash hit musical Sunset Boulevard.

"Playing this role on stage is an emotional roller coaster for me because there was a time when I was on TV all the time," she declared. "You are up there and the next thing - nothing. When I am on that stage, Norma takes over. I can relate to this because you can be up there one minute and on your backside the next. There were quiet times where all of a sudden you are not flavour of the month. It happens to everybody."

Though it must be said Faith's unhappy experience was nowhere near as dramatic as that of the tragic Ms Desmond, the forgotten silent movie star around whom a second-rate Hollywood writer spins his ambitions. "I have my own band, and am a singer first and foremost," Faith said. "I have got that to fall back on. Though Norma is still a very glamorous lady she is a bitch from the beginning although she truthfully is a very vulnerable woman. She has had the knocks. She was a mega-star and to have come down from that is bound to have affected her in some way. I have given her some dignity."

The role, so memorably played by Gloria Swanson in the Billy Wilder film classic, has previously been filled in the Andrew Lloyd Webber stage adaptation by Glenn Close, Elaine Paige and Patti Lupone, though Faith has certainly made it her own. "It is amazing how it has taken over my life," she said. "So many people remember me for the impressions and the comedy but I always knew I could do a straight role - a really hard, biting straight role. The performer has had to battle against the blight of typecasting to prove it though." She said: "People put you in a little box - Faith Brown: impressionist and comedienne. They don't think that there is a straight actress there. Thank God Andrew Lloyd Webber saw this in me and gave me the role."

Now Faith Brown reborn is a singing actress in her own right, with one of the finest musical spectaculars which boldly captures the heyday of Hollywood in the Fifties and the ultimate glamour. Faith's dresses alone cost £30,000 and during a show rich in musical numbers - ranging from the opening song Surrender, to With One Look and If We Never Said Goodbye - she has to successfully complete 12 costume changes. Wherever the production plays on tour it is to standing ovations and the critics are loving it.

Even Faith's own daughter Danielle, 24, has been amazed by the transformation made by her mother when she sweeps down the ornate staircase that is a central prop on the stage. "Once I am on that stage I am in another world," said Faith. "My daughter said, 'Don't you ever think of bringing Norma Desmond home here - if you do you are out in the street!' "

Having been on tour since August the show has been attracting a big following of fans who call themselves`Sunsetters' who have returned to see it up to 30 times.

"I love the piece - the music is sensational. It is haunting, it is dramatic." said Faith.