Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Jenny Fitzpatrick, Chris Tummings, Msimisi Dlamini, Helena Dowling, Katy Lye, Maria Omakinwa, Tamara McKoy-Patterson, Rob Eckland, Amaziah Davis, Michael Paver, Kenton Noel, Tony Qunta, Justin Shaw, Adam Nash.
When it comes to the life of global superstar Tina Turner, the truth is so much more interesting than fiction could ever be. In the latest production to come to the Liverpool Empire Theatre, that life comes to full sparkling fruition in the stunning and outrageously brilliant and musically divine Soul Sister.
Tina Turner is such a phenomenon, an artist that cannot simply be parodied or copied on a whim. She deserves the best to perform as her, to take on the complexity of a woman who took all that life and Ike Turner through at her and still come out as one of the most adept, courageous and singing sensations of all time and in Jenny Fitzpatrick, the woman was captured in all her guile, beauty and fantastic voice. Ms. Fitzpatrick wasn’t just taking off the woman who drove audiences wild from her first appearances as a young woman and who could still command the same affection if she were to walk on stage anywhere in the world today, she was breathing the same air, she walked the walk and gave such a blistering performance that anybody not realising it was a musical could well have been overjoyed at thinking that Ms Turner was actually on stage again in Liverpool.
The music though wasn’t the only side to the story and in between classic songs such as the opener Private Dancer, You Know I Love You, I Idolise You, the brilliant River Deep, Mountain High, Respect, What’s Love Gotta Do With It, Addicted To Love and a sensuous performance of I Can’t Stand The Rain, the love, heartache, betrayal and anger of her relationship with Ike Turner came crashing to the foreground. The audience were taken aback, even those that knew what had happened to the pair’s marriage, by the physical violence that was meted out upon Ms. Turner.
To portray that violence takes two exceptional actors to get across the pain and anguish felt. Ms. Fitzpatrick certainly played her part but Chris Tummings also did sterling job as the ultra-talented but destructive and cocaine addicted Ike Turner. Whereas Ms. Fitzpatrick captured the voice and style perfectly of the woman who wooed millions, Mr Tummings showed exactly why he was cast as the maverick musician as he gave a flawless performance of the man who took Tina Turner’s heart and soul and left her broke, in debt, beaten but unbowed.
In a musical that hung on the very songs created in a 30 odd career at that point and with equally enthralling choreography, this was deliberately delightful, such a vivid experience of harmonious wealth and one that got the audience up dancing in and around their seats as if the great lady herself had returned to open up for the Rolling Stones in Liverpool all those years ago.
Audiences might not think they need another hero but in jenny Fitzpatrick they have one ready and waiting and so superb.
Ian D. Hall