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There’s an ice queen, a ball and a transformation scene, but no, we’re not at a pantomime. This is the world of high fashion as depicted in the spindly heeled musical version of The Devil Wears Prada. And forget good versus evil — here the stakes are really high. Sure, a character might get eaten by a wolf in a seasonal fairytale, but that doesn’t come anywhere near the horror of fetching the wrong coffee for she-dragon Miranda, the imperious editor of fashion mag Runway. In the elegant hands of Vanessa Williams, Miranda’s dismissive sign-off “That’s all” has the icy finality of a medieval monarch sending an errant courtier to the block.
Jerry Mitchell’s glossy staging leans into the associations suggested by the show’s title — Miranda makes her first appearance rising from beneath the stage like some latter-day Mephistopheles and sweeps down the stairs at the pivotal gala in a sensational sequinned scarlet gown, as if arriving to cast a bad spell. And there is a kind of rags-to-riches formula to the narrative (based on the 2006 film, itself drawn from Lauren Weisberger’s 2003 novel), in which aspiring serious journalist Andy — “I want to change hearts and minds” — somehow lands a job at a top fashion magazine despite dressing like a particularly earnest sixth-form student.
There’s a price of course — Andy’s meteoric rise depends on her shafting Miranda’s hyper-keen assistant, Emily, and dumping her adoring chef boyfriend (Rhys Whitfield, making the best of a paper-thin role). Given how smart she is, it takes Andy a remarkable length of time to figure out just how cut-throat this glittery business can be.
And that’s one of the problems with the show, which shadows the film and hurtles along to a foreseeable conclusion via a series of one-stop plot points. Will Andy sleep with a well-connected journalist? Of course she will. Will she regret it? Naturally. Fans of the movie may enjoy revelling in key droll moments, choice bitchy lines, and the sheer poise of Williams’ Miranda, and this was never going to be a musical in the Sondheim vein. But even so, beneath the swirl of Gregg Barnes’ rich costumes and the vigour of Mitchell’s choreography, it’s all fairly predictable and dramatically as undernourished as poor body-obsessed Emily.
Sadly that goes too for Elton John’s music, which drives the show with propulsive rock, power ballads and some upbeat highlights — “Dress Your Way Up” — but doesn’t follow you out of the theatre. The one song that really makes a mark is “Seen”, a delicate, heartfelt, piano-driven solo for Matt Henry’s Nigel (Miranda’s creative director and right-hand man), which he delivers beautifully, bringing a moment of depth and reflection. And the show suddenly lifts off during a witty fantasy number for Emily, when, drugged up in hospital, she conjures a chorus line of hot male nurses: it’s a sizzling sequence that illustrates how innovative the musical could have been.
Amy Di Bartolomeo is fabulous as Emily and Georgie Buckland has a rich, soaring voice and appealing presence as Andy. But their characters are slenderly drawn. It is possible to turn a film into something fresh and perceptive onstage — The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for example. But this show attempts nothing so daring. Sparkly as it is, I fear Miranda would hang it back on the rail.
★★☆☆☆
Booking to October 18, 2025, devilwearspradamusical.com
