Left – David Campbell & Ensemble. Cover – David Campbell & Hannah Fredericksen. Photos – Brian GeachOpening with Mack the Knife and a cheesy choreography that looks like a halfpenny opera, Dream Lover charts the life and career of Bobby Darin.
Based on an original concept and stage play by Frank Howson and John Michael Howson, Dream Lover is a paint by numbers entertainment. But what numbers they are, from pretty pop to certified classics to deserved standards, the stuff that effortlessly tugs at our nostalgia nodes, made all the more thrillingly alive when performed by a cast that is “on song”.
David Campbell dazzles as Darin, relishing the role that requires a range of musical interpretation from the silly soap and bubble, bubble gum pop, Splish Splash, to the novelty naughtiness of Multiplication through to dramatic show stoppers like Who Can I Turn To? and The Curtain Falls.
Caroline O'Connor, deservedly canonised in the church of musical theatre, takes on the dual roles of Polly, the woman who brought Bobby Darin up, and Mary, mother of Sandra Dee, who would become Darin's mother in law.
Marney McQueen as Nina, Darin's biological mother who he was brought up believing to be his sister seals her superb supporting turn with a heart breaking rendition of More, essentially a solo, but subtly silhouetted with accompaniment by O'Connor.
Among the several single delights in this tip of the iceberg songbook, Phoebe Panaretos gives a fine rendition of Connie Francis, whose simpatico Italian heritage could not sway her father's ferocious opposition to their romance.
And a quartet of contemporary choristers made up of Darin, Buddy Holly (Tim Madden), Frankie Avalon (Joshua Robson) and Dion ( Xander Ellis) produces a memorable pastiche of pop with The Wanderer, Venus, Peggy Sue, and Queen of the Hop, seguing into a boy band version of Rock n Roll Music.
Brian Thomson's semi circular set is a triumph, aesthetically pleasing plus practically perfect, an enclave for a brilliant big band under the musical direction of pianist, Daniel Edmonds, bejewelled in light bulb beads, with a central stair brilliantly utilised for dramatic entrance and deft descending dance steps.
The overall look is what you might find in those huge hotel showrooms in Vegas, or the Copacabana.
The title Dream Lover comes, of course, from one of Darin's self penned hits, but it is also illustrative of the singer's life. He was a dream lover, loving his dreams, bordering, protecting, meeting and nurturing his dreams of showbiz stardom, and through due diligence and true devotion, dreaming them into reality.
The tropes of struggle, rejection and success are traversed, a cliched coda of all artistic aspiration and ambition are superbly surveyed in the songs, with lyrics and titles that are indicative of the bigger story.
Indeed, the zip and zing of this production, the voluminous vitality, the mountain of music that moulds the narrative, and the title of the show could easily have been lifted from another of Darin's songs, I'm Gonna Live Till I Die.
As this show shows, for Bobby Darin there was certainly a lot of singing, certainly a lot of living, to do.
John Frost and Gilbert Theatrical Pty Ltd
Dream Lover - The Bobby Darin Musical
by Frank Howson and John-Michael Howson
Directed by Simon Phillips
Venue: Sydney Lyric Theatre, The Star
Dates: from 22 September 2016
Tickets: from $69.90
Bookings: ticketmaster.com.au | 1300 795 267
