Dream Lover

Dream Lover
Music & Lyrics: Bobby Darin & Others. Concept & Book: John Michael Howson & Frank Howson. Additional material by Simon Phillips & Carolyn Burns. John Frost & Gilbert Theatrical. Director: Simon Phillips. Choreographer: Andrew Hallsworth. Musical Director: Richard Montgomery. State Theatre, Arts Centre, Melbourne 31 Dec 2017 until 4 Mar, 2018.

David Campbell is giving a gold standard Broadway performance in Dream Lover, the new jukebox musical based on the life of Bobby Darin. The young, good-looking performer plays the 50s and 60s pop-crooner with buckets of charm and charisma. Rarely off-stage he’s simply a powerhouse delivering show-stopping vocals of Darin’s songbook that embrace everything from “Mack the Knife” to “Splish Splash”, and the title tune.

Campbell has always been a great big-band singer and this show is the perfect vehicle to display his Sinatra-like chops. Whether he’s belting “I’m Gonna Live Till I Die”, wooing his wife Sandra Dee (Hannah Frederickson) with “Call Me Irresponsible”, or breaking our hearts with “The Curtain Falls”, he delivers.

Although it’s a show-business saga complete with the usual ups and downs (Darin had a dodgy heart following rheumatic fever as a boy and died early at 37), it carries some pathos and emotion which Campbell and Frederickson play very well indeed. Her capturing of Dee’s vulnerability and sexual abuse back-story was heartfelt and her solo spot with “Charade” as a comment on their fractured marriage was extremely effective.

Campbell was brilliant in the second act reveal when he finds out his mother is actually his grandmother. It almost feels like he’s channelling his own life with an absent father and being raised by his own grandmother. For a moment we almost felt like voyeurs.

It was a clever idea to have Darin’s grandmother Polly and Dee’s mother Mary played by the one actress. Marina Prior couldn’t have been better as the down-market Polly exhorting Darin to “Start Off Each Day With a Song”, which was nicely imagined as a trio with Young Bobby (Lachlan Young), and then doing a complete switch with the driven and determined-to-make-her-daughter-a-star Mary.

Martin Crewes was a great second-banana as Darin’s agent Steve Blauner and his duet with Campbell of “The Best Is Yet To Come” was a blast, whilst Marney McQueen as Nina (Darin’s birth mother) and Rodney Dobson as Charlie (his step-dad) were always solid backups.

Brian Thomson’s amphitheatre set, reminiscent of the Hollywood Bowl or Radio City Music Hall, was appropriately glitzy, Tim Chappell’s costumes mirrored the era, while Richard Montgomery’s brassy big-band gave the show drive.

There have been revisions to the show since its Sydney premiere in October in 2016 (gone are the Afro wigs in “Simple Songs of Freedom”) and director Simon Phillips has tightened the piece but both acts are still too long (always a problem with Phillips’ original work) and would be much better if one or two numbers were cut.

The only jarring note was Andrew Hallsworth’s jerky choreography, OK for “Splish Splash” but anachronistic for mostly everything else.

Still it’s only a minor quibble really because you won’t be watching the ensemble you’ll only be watching Campbell. He’s the real deal. A star!

Peter Pinne 

Photographer: Brian Geach     

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