Close-Up: The Twiggy Musical by Ben Elton - Menier

Actually rude of them not to take that into consideration.

Close-Up may be a jukebox musical but it has a first-rate selection of pop songs. The Menier have omitted any list from the programme, but the stand-out for me was Elena Skye's rendition of the superb Leslie Gore classic You Don't Own Me that closes Act 1. There is a beautiful duet with Darren Day in Act 2 too. This show is three-star-enjoyable purely for the music. Apart from a Lewis Capaldi number, the choices are era-accurate and range from 30s to 80s.

Is there any theatrical content to justify raising the rating further? Well, yes, just about, but it suffers from having Ben Elton, who is a stranger to nuance and subtlety, serving as both writer and director. I wonder who he calls upon to tell him honestly what is working dramatically and what is not. My suspicion is no-one.

There are lines in the mouth of Twiggy that sound like they are lifted straight from an Elton stand-up monologue, including shoe-horned-in, unnecessary references to Windrush, queer politics and gender identity. A good script doctor could fix this.

To be fair, when not making political observations, Elton does provide the lead with some interesting and occasionally amusing one-liners, and her life-story zips along at pace, but with no real time to fully get to know the real character. While secondary characters are shown to have flaws, the Twiggy here remains remarkably good-natured. The narrative is driven mainly by having Twiggy act as principal narrator, and she is rarely offstage.

Tonight we also had the setting-your-expectations introduction from Elton, where he seemed to suggest they'd had only four days of serious rehearsal. His side-point that there is a whole "Off-Broadway ecosystem" feeding new musicals to the Great White Way, whereas London has only the Menier, may come as a surprise to the Almeida, Sheffield Crucible, Birmingham Rep, Manchester Opera House and countless others.

Prompting was called for only a handful of times and did not detract, save in the final number, which is still a mess.

The set is simple, and there are projections of period stills and film footage across three screens. (Although they are positioned at far left, far right and rear centre so that all audience members can see at least one screen, they do not always have the same content on each).

As to be expected at previews, mics were not always on at the right time and characters were not always lit when they should be.

The costumes were suitably colourful, and -- reminded of What's New Pussycat -- I couldn't help wondering if the Birmingham Rep, with its scope for a psychedelic production design on a much larger and more detailed set, would not have been a better choice of venue for this try-out.

Four stars (which is a tad generous, but I'm making allowance for this being a preview that was fairly priced at just £30.75).

Ben Elton introduction: 19:31-19:35
Act 1: 19:36-20:44
Act 2: 21:08-22:18

They should take this off until it's ready.

Yes, this is written as Twiggy's rebuttal to all that, and in particular her dislike of "svengali".

She was on The One Show last night. Apparently Elton is a close pal and in conversation at a dinner party he offered to write this.

This might be the best thing anyone has ever posted on this board.

What absolute nonsense. It was in rehearsals for weeks.

He probably meant 4 days of tech- well he would have agreed that time ….so …..

There is probably something in the idea that, in a man's world, she wasn't given sufficient credit for her achievements, but the veracity doesn't really matter. It's an enjoyable story and the music is fabulous.

It was well received, and the standing ovation last night felt genuine rather than given out of a sense of pity.

Saw the third preview last night and LOVED this. It's a thoroughly entertaining above-average jukebox biographical musical, in my opinion.

It's straightforwardly told, it's songs reflect all the situations they are sung for, it's funny, it's got a very likeable central character, the songs picked are extremely entertainingly staged and performed.

It doesn't completely create a convincing thesis about lessons to be learned from Twiggy's life, but it comes close.

The songs, while reflecting the situations they are sung in, do not in themselves move the story forward, bar a couple.

Elena Skye is hugely successful in creating a credible, no nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is, no airs Twiggy, as well as reflecting a winning naivety in her early years.

Hannah-Jane Fox runs Skye close as MVP of the production, as Twiggy's utterly distinctive mother.

Spoilers follow. . .

Ben Elton came out at the beginning with a marvellous bit of self-deprecating standup, which made me laugh more than I did at his character's uber-stridency in "We will Rock You." Long and short of it, he admitted he was changing the script lots, and tonight, we'd have a new ending (I'd love to know how it ended in the first two previews lol))

This gives weight to a board member's suggestion (above) that in the first preview, Elena Skye's performance may have been thrown off by frequent script changes. In last night's preview, by contrast, she called for only one line, and made immediate light of it ("I was doing so well until then") in such a swift and smooth way that she got a big laugh, like it was one of her character, Twiggy's own self-effacing confessional moments.

Anyhow, Elton presents Twiggy's story (last night's version) mostly in order, with the one exception being an opening flashforward to Twiggy being mobbed by adoring fans in Twiggy masks. Skye's Twiggy performed Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love," which served as her declaration that her life would be about looking for love, but also seemed to suggest that such love could easily run a dysfunctional course, as embodied by the adoring but threatening mob.

This dysfunction is explored, in particular, in her relationship with Justin de Villeneuve, primo "svengali" in Twiggy's life (his brother coined the name, Twiggy), who started his relationship with her when she was only 15 and he was 25, and was her manager and lover. (Times were different then, Twiggy insists, admitting she lied about her relationship to her parents, so it's not their fault, and also admitting that with hindsight, it was a bit "creepy").

Matt Corner's De Villeneuve, however, comes across as an absolute gem of a character, all puffed-up narcissism and smokescreen lies, yes, but in a slightly coy, mostly shameless, I'm-only-doing-this-cos-life-would-be-boring-otherwise, beaming, ingratiating, unthreatening way. Corner, dressed to the nines, nails De Villeneuve's signature song, Dobie Gray's "The In Crowd," with panache.

In the face of this Svengali, Twiggy is depicted as somewhat enigmatic, with the American Breed's "Bend Me Shape Me" depicting just how much she is willing to go along with anything if it'll get her what she wants.

But that's the point, these Svengalis must ultimately dance to her tune, which is, naturally, Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me," which Skye's powerful rock pop vocal absolutely nails to end the first half.

Corner's explosive De Villeneuve is core to the humour of the first half. It's funny how bright faced his swollen balloon of shamelessness is, and it's funny to see that balloon burst again and again.

The second half is less funny, more romantic, more sad. Twiggy's first husband, Michael Witney, was a substance abuser, but when he wasn't abusing substances he really loved her. Darren Day embodies Witney with a soft faded glamour, a man who constantly seems to be running out of breath. The great positive love song of their union is The Hollies's "The Air that I Breathe," while the great negative song of their union is Harry Nilsson's "Without You," and both songs are beautiful, and both get reprises.

Twiggy's ultimate answer, as depicted by Ben Elton, to the accusation that she has no talent is her Tony nominated, 800 show, run in the "My One and Only" Gershwin musical with Tommy Tune on Broadway. Images of her performing one of songs, "S'Wonderful" are broadcast on the back of the stage, to prove the real Twiggy's genuine prowess, while Skye's Twiggy takes over in the foreground. It's S'Wonderful lol. (You can see these images on Twiggy TV on YouTube). Skye probably outperforms Twiggy's singing, but, as if now, is marginally behind in the dancing.

If these are the bare bones of the plot, Elton deepens the whole show exponentially in his depiction of Twiggy's mother, who is shown to have mental illness and actually had regular electro convulsive therapy. That Twiggy springs from this woman is her true origin story, and perhaps why Twiggy has always been so grounded.

It is suggested that the bombing of Twigys parents' house in WW2 in 1940 may have triggered Twiggys Mum's illness, and tunes from this earlier era are summoned to convey all the complication of this amazing, stunted, vibrant life force of a woman. So she performs Vera Lynn's "White Cliffs of Dover" to signal the start of her troubles, and like her daughter, yearns for the "happy ending" of Gracie Fields's "Happy Ending."

As Twiggy's Mum, Hannah-Fox is a revelation, sometimes subdued, sometimes manic, but always electric and captivating.

And this battle of the Scaramouches, the originator of the role, Hannah-Jane Fox and the latest one, Elena Skye, for who is MVP of this show probably results in a tie, as both are so critical to everything.

All in all, I can't pretend this hits all the marks of a great musical, but it is terrifically entertaining and uplifting. 4 stars from me.

PS: This third preview ended like this:

Thankyou Steve for this detailed and great review.
I have just returned home from seeing the 4th preview and i loved it too! So much so i have booked another ticket for 2 weeks time to see how it develops.
Yes, its not perfect but i was never bored and found myself really immersed in the Twiggy story. Quite an interesting life to be honest! Since coming home i've googled alot and found some more fascinating things about the woman. Agree with all that you wrote but imo the only character that you left out, who was a favourite of mine in the show, was the dad, Norman Hornby. I thought it was a lovely nuanced performance and loved the relationship between him and his wife. As a father i was really moved by a scene towards the end of Act 2 that Steven Serlin, the actor who portrays Norman, played out. He and Hannah Jane Fox play some great cameo roles in the show and my particular favourite was Melvyn Bragg! very funny.
Think this show could do very well. Nice to see some different tunes from the 60's and 70's and not the usual ones that are more commonly used.

Ha ha, I would have mentioned how much I liked Serlin too, had I not been in a theatre waiting for another show to start, forcing me to focus only on what I thought was the absolute best things in the show.

Not only did I like Serlin, but also Aoiffe Dunne, who brought so much humanity and emotion into her small parts.

Some spoilers follow. . .

I also would have said that the choice of Larry Williams's "Bony Maronie" to reflect the early thin-shaming of Twiggy, particularly by the male ensemble, was perfect.

The ick factor of Twiggy's feelings for De Villeneuve was nicely expressed by Dusty Springfield's "Spooky," I thought, and her trapped feelings of her marriage with Witney made for a fantastic "Stuck in the Middle with You," by Stealers Wheel!

If any of my shows get cancelled, I might consider going to this again instead, so I can see the frozen final show. It's just great fun.