Review: BATTERSEA BARDOT, New Wimbledon Theatre Studio

Carol White was a 1960’s movie producer’s wet dream (probably literally). She had the acting chops to have played the lead role in the BBC’s Cathy Come Home over half a century on, still the reference point for social realism in TV drama and had the oh so trendy working class London accent to go with the Julie Christie looks and Glenda Jackson attitude. She was a star all right, but one destined to burn bright and then fall.

Ewen Moore’s new musical, Battersea Bardot (like much else at that time, it was a label - albeit a good one - pinned on her by a man: she was from Hammersmith) opens with our heroine alone in London on New Year’s Eve 1969, let down by another feckless husband. We then go back in time to the days at stage school and her big break from Ken Loach and forward to the alcohol and drug abuse and appallingly early death at 49 in a dingy Florida hotel.

Anne Rabbitt catches her defiance, charm and vulnerability in this one-woman show, supported by Gabrielle Ball on piano and Annie Hodgson on cello, teetering on the edge of melodrama portraying an admittedly melodramatic life. We learn of the affairs, the cruelty and the near miss - for good or ill - with Frank Sinatra and just how exposed a woman, even a star, was in Hollywood and London in the decade that saw the launch of Women’s Lib. Inevitably we wonder how much has really changed.

Rabbit’s head voice is perfect for bringing out the fragility of Carol’s state of mind, but the show could do with a big belting 11 o’clock number, the songs pleasing, but none memorable. There’s a lot of distracting and unnecessary curtain pulling which slows the action and reminds us that we’re in a theatre, losing the rapport and intimacy carefully constructed by director, Elizabeth Huskisson. One can’t help wondering if the show would work better as a song cycle in a cabaret environment.

Carol White is an increasingly interesting figure these days, a pre-#MeToo woman whose combination of talent and timing took her to the top in a blazing five year run of success. To capture all that in a musical requires more budget and ambition than is evident in this show which, nevertheless, offers an insight into a figure undeservedly forgotten in discussions of great British film stars. Joan Collins, a decade older, survives to tell her own story today - Carol deserved at least that epilogue.    

Battersea Bardot at New Wimbledon Theatre until 23 September

Photo Credit: Alex Forey

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