Dusty, a new, bio-musical about Dusty Springfield, has been in preview since 25 May. What on Earth 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 Love 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 get exactly the sound she wanted.
Clearly nobody associated with this production – which has seen the departure of choreographer, 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, new 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, poor Alison Arnopp is not just forced to compete with Springfield’s voice, a contest in which she inevitably comes off worst, but with several bizarre holograms of the dead singer. It’s the oddest and creepiest upstaging I’ve ever seen.
There are pleasures in an evening that doesn’t so much appear to have been directed as assembled, but they are largely accidental ones, and include a script and delivery that on occasion give rise to unintentional laughter.
There is a mesmerising display of jaw-droppingly bad wigs, the costumes don’t fit some of the cast, and the choreography is clearly aiming for something retro but ends up looking as if it has come out of the ark. A jukebox musical that does a real disservice to its subject and which takes mediocrity to a new low.
• At Charing Cross theatre, London, until 23 November. Buy tickets at theguardianboxoffice.com or call 0330 333 6906.
