BWW Reviews: DOROTHY SQUIRES MRS ROGER MOORE, White Bear Theatre, June 7 2012

Dorothy Squires was my mother's favourite singer - a Welsh Diva whose life off stage made as many (well, far more really) headlines than her string of hit singles and sell-out shows. In Richard Stirling's affectionate, if sometimes brutally frank, tribute, we get the songs, the rise from provincial poverty to Hollywood parties via payola scandals, the marriage to Roger Moore and the long, long fall from grace amidst bankruptcy, booze and Bromley mansion fires.

Al Pillay, in enough slap to sink a battleship, is Dorothy, belting out the songs, laying on the emotions and getting a few laughs too. He's supported by an excellent group of musicians / actors who sing, dance and play the many, many men who used and abused Dorothy in her long life. Austin Staton is deadpan hilarious as a young and wooden Roger Moore, married to Dorothy, but chasing starlets and failing in the movies, before making it in television (and later becoming Bond).

Of course, it's camp and of course, drag is always played for laughs to some extent, but there's nothing to offend the memory of a singer now largely forgotten, but whose influence can be heard in the works of vocalists all the way from Dusty to Adele. Dorothy Squires' older fans will enjoy the show and younger ones will be blown away by a sensational My Way and Till.  

Dorothy Squires Mrs Roger Moore is at The White Bear Theatre until 16 June and at The Gilded Ballroom Edinburgh 12 August - 27 August.