The Stage

Piaf

Published Thursday 14 August 2008 at 11:25 by Paul Vale

A distinctly talented singer vocalises the misery of her life in song to become one of the most admired and distinctive chansonnier of the 20th century.

Pam Gems has reworked her original seventies play and the result, under Jamie Lloyd’s breakneck direction is fast and furious. The pace here is breathtaking, leaving very little time for sentiment or in fact, any emotion at all. Shock value is used to great effect to highlight the seedier elements of Piaf’s life and the guttural language seems perfectly appropriate, but there is a lack of soul here that sometimes even Piaf’s most evocative songs cannot rectify.

This is very much an ensemble piece, but Elena Roger is on stage practically throughout and while she recreates Piaf’s songs well, there is little depth in the text to create any kind of three-dimensional characterisation. Roger has an undeniable energy that lends itself to Piaf’s early life but, unlike the rest of the cast, she adopts a French accent, which simply seems odd. The ageing process never really convinces aided as it is by a selection of particularly ill-disguised wigs, but by this point we are simply waiting for Roger to bowl us over with her rendition of Non, je ne regrette rien.

Lorraine Bruce makes for an excellent Toine with her caustic delivery and ebullient acting style. She represents one end of Piaf’s social scale while Katherine Kingsley as a shimmering, sensible Marlene, represents the other. The men sweep through this play as swiftly as they passed through Piaf’s life and there are some notable performances, particularly from Steve John Shepherd as her long-suffering manager Emil and Leon Lopez as her second husband, the Greek hairdresser 20 years her junior.