Theatre Review: Dusty

Telegraph.

But apart from that, Mrs Lincoln...

Dusty: Irony

Reviewing a new book about the life of Springfield, which speculates about the singer’s sexual orientation, Roger Lewis wrote in a Spectator review published earlier this month: “Call me a crazy old physiognomist, but my theory is that you can always spot a lesbian by her big thrusting chin.

“Celebrity Eskimo Sandi Toksvig, Ellen DeGeneres, Jodie Foster, Clare Balding, Vita Sackville-West, God love them: there’s a touch of Desperate Dan in the jaw-bone area, no doubt the better to go bobbing for apples.”

‘Dusty: An Intimate Portrait’ has been written by author Karen Bartlett. It speculates about the musical icon’s much talked about relationships with women.

Quoting extracts of Bartlett from the book, Lewis continued: “It is thus a tragedy that Dusty Springfield’s whole existence was blighted by her orientation, which explains ‘the silence and secrecy she extended over much of her life, and her self-loathing’.”

Lewis wrote: “One glance at her chin should have revealed all – but the Sixties was not a fraction as liberated and swinging as people now assume.”

At the end of his review, Lewis concluded: “But did Dusty really have an affair in Mustique with Princess Margaret? If I am sceptical it is only because Hanoverians have small chins.”

Pink News.

Roger Lewis is one of Britain's funniest humourists - but, as ever, we see wit and irony are completely wasted on the thick and stupid.

Here are some other book reviews he wrote for The Spectator - if you can't see he's taking the piss you're brain dead.

PS This is a complete non-story planted by Pink News' top gay Tory friend, Iain Dale, who published the book.

Dusty Springfield: I Want To Be A Free Girl

Forty years ago it was not done to inquire about a woman’s sexuality — especially not if that woman was a famous singer much loved by the great British public.

Yet that was exactly what Dusty Springfield mischievously goaded me into asking during an interview with her in 1970.

As two lapsed Catholics, we’d been talking about guilt, mortal sin and going to confession as children.

From there the conversation had led to sex and promiscuity, when Dusty suddenly said: ‘There’s something else you should ask me now. Go on, ask me. I know you’ve heard the rumours.’

She was right. I had heard the gossip that said she preferred girls to boys. So I hesitantly put the question, and she was off.

Never admitting that she was exclusively lesbian, and hating the idea that she might be thought of as a ‘big butch lady’, she happily talked about not being upset that girls ran after her a lot. She was, she said, ‘perfectly as capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy’.

‘Being a pop singer I shouldn’t even admit that I might think that way, but if the occasion (to swing either way) arose, I don’t see why I shouldn’t,’ she told me...
Daily Mail.

This was pretty bold for its time - no similar British male singer had said anything similar.

Here's the original Evening Standard interview. Oh, and there's yet another Dusty biography just out, which 'reveals sensational new details about Dusty’s childhood, her relationships, her addictions and her lifelong struggle to come to terms with her sexuality.' Really?

Pop and Politics 2 - George and Dusty

George Galloway, the former Celebrity Big Brother contestant for Bethnal Green and Bow, has told The Guardian he is writing a musical about Dusty Springfield.
Well, they say there's a musical in all of us, don't they?
Galloway said very little, to be honest, beyond that he's working on it with his old friend, Scotland On Sunday journalist, Ron McKay.
"We're both Dusty Springfield fans, both think she wasn't appreciated, especially in the US. It's always been banging around as an idea between us."
Mr Galloway, who Fagburn seems to have more time (if not necessarily respect) for than most, said it would be "political with a small p... It will not be just about her musical talent but her whole journey through life, her sexuality. It won't shirk from any of that."
Whether he means it'll be lesbian with a big or a small l, it's hard to know.
A jukebox musical telling the story of Dusty's turbulent life and featuring all her greatest hits?
It's certainly a great idea.
But Fagburn would like to point out that there have been three already; Dusty - The Musical (UK, 2000), A Girl Called Dusty (US, 2005), and Dusty - The Original Pop Diva (Australia, 2006).
A fourth - or fifth - Dusty The Musical A Life In Music is currently in production in the UK, or at least has a website.
Poor George.