Here’s a star performance in a shoddy vehicle. The astonishing Mary Bridget Davies does not so much impersonate as summon Janis Joplin, the self-destructive blues-rock singer whose raw, gutsy performances sounded like exorcisms, and who drank, shagged and drugged herself to death aged 27 in 1970.
The big hits like Piece of My Heart, Cry Baby and Stay With Me are belted out with full-throated conviction, and she’s supported by a strong backing troupe and band. Born in 1978, Davies is almost two decades older now than Joplin ever got to be, but – wild-haired and hippyishly bedecked – gives a sense of how the singer’s ghost might manifest herself. She has Joplin’s jerky, combative dance with the microphone and her bittersweet leer down pat.
Unfortunately, Janis’s songs are laced together by a folksy, sketchy, Southern Comfort-swigging narration of her life, and guest appearances from the blues and soul divas – Aretha Franklin, Etta James, Bessie Smith – who inspired her. None sing their most famous hits. Perhaps the rights were too expensive.
Written and directed by Randy Johnson, this is a tribute concert masquerading as a musical, a Frankenshow where the stitching is ugly and obvious. That it’s in the West End’s least atmospheric theatre, where Davies fought for audience rapport and a wished-for opening-night ovation, doesn’t help.
The set consists of platforms and a gantry, with a central screen that shows random 60s graphics and thunderstorms when not featuring baby photos of Janis, or her early paintings. Devastating as the vocal pyrotechnics are, the narrative will barely engage even the most fervent Janis stan.
What drove this “middle-class white chick” to burn through her life in pursuit of kicks and music? Who knows? All you get here are cute memories of her mum and sister and vague peregrinations about the blues.
I get it. To capture Joplin’s raspy passion, and her sheer caterwauling volume, is exhausting work. Davies has been doing it in one form or another since 2005, and in this show since 2011, winning a Tony nomination on Broadway in 2013. For the London run, Sharon Sexton will take over the role on matinees. But whoever’s playing Janis needs regular breaks, presumably to ingest more wholesome substances (honey and lemon, salt gargles) than Joplin herself did.
There must be a better way to give your star a lie-down, though, than to wheel on a fine singer in a horrible dress to batter the audience into sonic submission with an obscure Aretha B-side. Ongoing and recent West End shows devoted to Tina Turner and Bob Marley proved that compilation musicals need not be vacuous, but this one absolutely is. Although Davies convincingly invokes the blood, sweat and tears of Joplin in full flight, the overall effect is hollow.
