Lesley Hornby was 16 when she became the face of her generation in 1966. Dubbed Twiggy, the working-class model from Neasden shot to fame like a doe-eyed, gamine supernova.
In this musical, written and directed by Ben Elton, Elena Skye plays the role with loose-limbed nonchalance and a beautiful singing voice but that is not enough to save the production from simplistic narration, a karaoke soundtrack and its sheer weirdness of tone.
“This story is based on true events,” says Twiggy, narrating a neatly potted survey of her life, along with her all-singing, all-dancing parents and north London schoolfriends. We are taken through her highs as a teenage model, singer, fashion designer, star of screen and stage, and latterly as the woman who “saved Marks & Spencer” as her mother, Nell (Hannah-Jane Fox), boasts.
There are lows, too, including in Twiggy’s relationship with her “svengali” Justin de Villeneuve (Matt Corner), and her troubled marriage to the alcoholic Michael Witney (Darren Day), which leads her into single-motherhood. Witney is portrayed as a Jekyll and Hyde character, with Day giving a strangely leaden performance, further weighed down by his period wig (there are numerous other conspicuous wigs).
Songs come thick and fast, and encapsulate an era, from Downtown to Stuck in the Middle With You and – most bizarrely – Take Good Care of My Baby, sung by her parents in broad Lancashire accents. Skye has an impressive range but there are moments when it sounds like a pub singalong.
The narration reminds us of how things were then, compared with now, in overtly telegraphed ways. Britain was white, straight and binary in the 1960s, we are told. Twiggy was teased for being thin at school, which would be called “body shaming” today, while many men’s behaviour would now be deemed “toxic”. Nell says that in the 1960s “we thought class had disappeared” and then, as an aside, “what even is levelling up?” These commentaries sound suspiciously like lines from a standup routine, written by a state-of-the-nation comedian.
We whizz past fascinating cultural moments including the rise of Biba and the miniskirt, fashion and feminism becoming entwined and Britain showing signs of dismantling its class system. Twiggy wears some snappy dresses (costumes by Jonathan Lipman) and there is plenty of psychedelia, although the men’s clothes resemble the garish collars and ruffles of Austin Powers – as do their characterisations.
Twiggy’s parents are recurring figures, from rock-solid Norman (Steven Serlin) to troubled Nell, who is deemed “hysterical” for her postnatal depression. We see her receiving ECT treatment but the very next scene is a jolly, music-hall style number with Twiggy’s father and sisters. Nell is a strangely bouncy character, pronouncing her relapses into bad mental health and her departure to the sanatorium in jarringly upbeat tones.
As the mood swings from hagiography to bizarre comedy, the characters verge on caricatures. The black and white images and video footage of the real Twiggy, so much more compelling than the action on stage, are a hypnotic reminder of a phenomenon who is simply not captured in this over-bright, over-sentimental, rictus smile of a musical.
At the Menier Chocolate Factory, London, until 18 November
