Monocled Alchemist

Published in NME, 19th June 1982

Marianne Faithfull | Gig Review | Dominion Theatre 1982 | IT WOULD have been very easy (though not as easy as the whooping, whistling, fawning audience made it) for Marianne Faithfull to overcome her understandable nervousness at playing her first major — sold out! —concert in three years by either accentuating her pale, frail, broken loneliness or by pouting with her tough, bitter sultriness.

Either way, she would have been betraying her own strength and depth of independent character by caricaturing obvious stereotypes, but by approaching the show in simple blue jeans and drifting cigarette smoke with no theatrical props or setting, she purposely focussed attention on herself; on her own performance and her own highly distinctive voice.

And there’s the problem — her voice! Coming straight after six shows in Stockholm and another half-dozen in Paris, she seemed too strained, nervous and hoarse to cope with the range and scope required for her well-chosen songs of mood and drama.

Occasionally coughing off-microphone, she seemed strangely awkward and unprepared to dominate the stage on which she found herself. Her frequent forays stage-left between songs (for medicine? For confidence boosts?) became increasingly distracting.

Marianne Faithfull | Gig Review | Dominion Theatre 1982

But from the moment she stepped out from behind the curtain, bathed in blue light, whisps of ciggie smoke floating over her matted blondness, and started into ‘Broken English’, the partisan crowd were willing her to be special, be sensuous, be divine . . . but, in truth, the magic spark that resides in that haunting voice had gone up in smoke in a strangling halo that mocked.

On stage, Marianne Faithful! almost contrives to throw away all the impressive advantages of good lighting, sympathetic band bordering on the superb, emotive songs, an enviable reputation and an adoring audience.

All these amount to nothing when stacked against her faltering, curiously amateurish, fledgling stage-craft. As a chanteuse or torch-singer, she lacks the outrageous glamour or naked wretchedness associated with such starlets; she’s an earthy Dietrich without the studied allure.

But the songs are stupendous! (It’s only her delivery that lets her down.) On ‘Sweetheart’ she sounded fleetingly like Tammy Wynette, and ‘Tenderness’ was a soft-focus, sombre highlight, though the twin peaks of ‘Working Class Hero’ and ‘Why D’Ya Do It’ both suffered from lack of true involvement even if over 2,000 fans seemed to disagree.

Look. I hate to suggest this but perhaps Marianne Faithfull simply wasn’t ready for such a major show(case), while the audience had been waiting too long. But there’s always another time . . . (Johnny Waller)