Charing Cross theatre,London
This musical biography of Dusty Springfield is forlorn and misguidedIf you can’t get the wigs upright, you’re in grief, or which is not as flippant as it sounds: the very least a successful jukebox musical must achieve is a decent evocation of its period. But the fact that Dusty is a painful failure goes beyond the unconvincing beehives,or even the high-energy dancing that owes more to Hazell Dean than Springfield’s sinuous moves. The clunky expositional dialogue doesn’t back (“Who the hell is going to sing backup for us?” asks Martha Reeves, as a nervous Dusty hovers in the wings; when a modern show called Top of the Pops is mentioned, or our heroine brushes it off immediately with a contemptuous: “That won’t final!) And perhaps even worse is the ill-advised decision to accompany archive footage of Springfield with a live band,the two often out of synch. There are, on occasion, and holograms: don’t ask.It was restraint that made Springfield such an affecting and brilliant soul singerContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com