SUNSET BOULEVARD, Starring Ria Jones, Will Bring Drama Across the UK This Season

Norma Desmond will bring drama to towns across the UK, according to the Leicester Mercury, which reports the Curve announced the news of a SUNSET BOULEVARD tour at its 2017 season launch this evening.

Playing the iconic role will be Ria Jones, who stepped in for Glenn Close when she was taken ill during the show's run at the London Coliseum. Close is reprising her part on Broadway next month.

Curve artistic director Nikolai Foster will helm the show on tour, which runs September 16-30, 2017 at the Curve.

"It's just incredible," Jones told the Leicester Mercury. "To think I first workshopped the part aged 24 and now get to play her properly at the right age. Some parts just fulfil you and feel right emotionally and musically, and that's how I feel about Norma. Perhaps it's because I've had such a long association with her, but I can't wait to play her again and work with Nikolai again."

Foster told the paper: "Sunset Boulevard is an astonishingly intelligent, complex score, probably Lloyd Webber's most sophisticated piece, but he's always wanted a Hollywood legend to play the role. Ria is a phenomenal leading lady in her own right, but when she took over from Glenn Close at the Coliseum he realised we had the right ingredients to make something really special. Norma is a monstrous, vulnerable, tragic character and the show is truly theatrical - big, ballsy, epic and a visceral experience. I can't wait."

With music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, SUNSET BOULEVARD is produced by arrangement with The Really Useful Group Ltd and is based on the original Paramount film by Billy Wilder. Rumor is a movie musical remake is in the works.

In her mansion on SUNSET BOULEVARD, faded, silent-screen goddess, Norma Desmond, lives in a fantasy world. Impoverished screen writer, Joe Gillis, on the run from debt collectors, stumbles into her reclusive world. Persuaded to work on Norma's 'masterpiece', a film script that she believes will put her back in front of the cameras, he is seduced by her and her luxurious life-style. Joe becomes entrapped in a claustrophobic world until his love for another woman leads him to try and break free with dramatic consequences.