Review: DIETRICH: NATURAL DUTY, Wilton's Music Hall

Drag is a shield and a sword - one thinks of Dame Edna and Lily Savage - its unapologetic transgression licensing more transgression: the wit, the barbs, the naughtiness following as day follows night.

Drag is seldom merely a costume - the detail that convinces - but that's its role on Peter Groom's one (wo)man show, Dietrich: Natural Duty. It's the smartest move of a very smart show, as Dietrich herself had transgressions to burn, so why add another?

In a gold sequinned gown, Dietrich engages in reluctant conversation with a journalist from The Monitor - the old school BBC Arts Programme - compelling her to look back on a life a more unique than most.

We meet the drama student auditioning for her breakout role in The Blue Angel, all gawkish mannerisms, rat-a-tat-tat asides in German to her poor pianist, but with that charismatic connection to an audience granted to few (Marilyn and Madonna came to mind watching Marlene).

We see Captain Marlene Dietrich in World War II, flirting at the Front with the boys, desperately seeking news of her mother still in Berlin. Though not serious about her craft ("Say the lines and get off"), she knew her worth to the US Army and she knew what she had left behind when she renounced her German citizenship.

En route, the songs you would expect pepper the anecdotes and arguments, the highlight of which is an emotional rendition of Pete Seeger's "Where Have All The Flowers Gone".

They are sung beautifully by Peter Groom, but what impresses even more than his conjuring of the voice, is his movement - hands, arms, head declaim the star quality of Dietrich as much as the vocals and the look. It's a tribute of rare attention to detail - the drag just a vehicle that gets us to Groom's vision of A Star. Kathleen Nellis's costume work is well observed - but she did have quite a template from which to work - and Dietrich's androgynous beauty is almost as much male as female in any case.

The show is diminished a little without an on-stage pianist, and the banter, with the taped-in interlocutor, feels a little cheap in a show with otherwise strong production values. It's a rare evening indeed that one would like to last longer, but one hour all-through feels too brief given the range of material available and Groom's convincing performance.

As if to make that point, I'm listening to La Dietrich now as I write - and I shall do so more in the days to come. My mother was an unlikely fan (I thought it was probably just the smoking she liked) but Dietrich had something very rare indeed - and Groom brings plenty of that to this fine show.

Dietrich: Natural Duty continues at Wilton's Music Hall until 24 November.

Photo - Monir El Haimar

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