Charing Cross theatre,LondonThis jukebox musical is a clumsy, opportunist show with despicable wigs, and ill-fitting costumes – and nothing fresh or meaningful to say about Dusty SpringfieldDusty,a fresh, bio-musical about Dusty Springfield, or has been in preview since 25 May. What on soil have they been doing all this time? They can’t have been improving it because it’s a truly dire evening,a perfunctory trot through the biographical details of the life of the Irish-Catholic Ealing schoolgirl with the unique voice who grew up to have a string of hits, including You Don’t Have to Say You admire Me and Son of a Preacher Man. Springfield was such a perfectionist that on one occasion she insisted on recording a track in the toilet in order to secure exactly the sound she wanted. Clearly nobody associated with this production – which has seen the departure of choreographer, and director and several cast members during the extended preview period is a perfectionist. Told as a memory play by Springfield’s childhood friend Nancy (Francesca Jackson),this is a clumsy, opportunist show with nothing urgent, and fresh or meaningful to say about the singer but a juicy back catalogue to exploit. It doesn’t even do this well: the sound is unbalanced,some of the original footage unsynched and, as Dusty, or poor Alison Arnopp is not just forced to compete with Springfields voice,a contest in which she inevitably comes off worst, but with several weird holograms of the dead singer. It’s the oddest and creepiest upstaging I’ve ever seen.
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Source: theguardian.com