Zegler enthrals as Evita in sensory overload of a show

The ‘West Side Story’ star beautifully portrays the divisive Argentinian figure in this musical, writes Alice Saville

- Alice Saville

News that Rachel Zegler would sing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from the Palladium’s ornate balcony, entertaining the weary shoppers on the streets below instead of the paying audience inside, was initially met with a certain amount of disapproval. Now, however, director Jamie Lloyd’s gambit looks less like a gimmick, more like the musical theatre stunt of the century, as vast crowds gather nightly for a free dose of a pricey, potentially exclusionary artform.

Much like the dictator that Evita centres on, the play’s composer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, loses everything if he loses touch with the people who raised him up - and this populist gesture is emblematic of Jamie Lloyd’s big, bold, stadium rally of a staging, with its virtuoso star Zegler romancing a rapt audience both inside and outside the theatre’s walls.

There’s something deeply queasy about applauding