Breakfast At Tiffany’s with Pixie Lott
There’s one glaring weakness in this dark, stylish production
Breakfast At Tiffany’s Bord Gáis Theatre
June 18
One of the few things I remember from the 1961 movie version of Truman Capote’s novel is Mickey Rooney as the Japanese Mr Yunioshi, a performance so heroically dreadful that the film couldn’t be shown publicly now without protesters popping up. The other thing, of course, is the irresistible waif-like charm of Audrey Hepburn, that didn’t even begin to suggest that Holly Golightly was a $50-a-trick call-girl. In fact, the film was so ambivalently soft-focus that it wasn’t clear exactly how Holly earned a living.
The stage version that ran here this week was nearer the original. In it Holly was much nearer the restless, wilful, ambitious girl-on-the-make of the novel; the set-up was still funny, but darker. This Holly fitted her description in the script as someone ‘who’s a phony, but a real phony … she gives you horse **** on a platter’.
But there was one serious snag. Pixie Lott has chalked up zillions of sales for her albums and has become a celebrity as an X Factor judge and as a Strictly Come Dancing performer, but she was out of her depth as the meteoric Holly.
It’s another instance of a TV performer coming to the stage without the technique needed to project her voice in a large theatre. A lot of the time I was guessing what she was saying, because her delivery was either too rushed or too muted. To give her a shot at her speciality, she sang a few songs, including a truncated number from Oklahoma and a wailing rendition with guitar of Moon River, the Oscar-winning song from the movie about the longing to chase your dreams, that sums up Holly’s outlook on life and love.
The other main character, of course, is Fred, the writer in lap-dog thrall to Holly’s charms as a woman but not as a lover. Matt Barber caught all the bemusement of Fred’s inability to understand Holly’s volatile nature and Robert Calvert as Doc, Holly’s unacknowledged husband, was a fine example of how to project on stage.
The rest of the cast gave spirited performances, doubling up roles and keeping the action lively. The staging and production values in general were first rate but as the play progressed, the episodic nature of the stage adaptation sometimes gave an impression of ticking boxes instead of getting involved with the emotional aspects of the story.
Cast give spirited performances… and keep the action lively