Divas by Bernadette Robinson – REVIEW
Image: DIVAS - Bernadette Robinson. Photo: Peter Wallis
Bernadette Robinson is a home-grown talent who should be better known that she is. Her one-women show, Divas, now on at the Playhouse Theatre, is a tour de force. For 90 uninterrupted minutes, Robinson has the audience in her thrall as she vocally transitions through ten iconic female singers, convincingly imitating them in song and speech.
Robinson is dressed in black pants, lacy black top, and a black jacket which she occasionally removes and puts back on with different characters. There are no wigs, accessories, props or anything else to help affect her impersonation.
Above and behind her is a large poster displaying the faces of the ten divas she features in her act, and each is lit up in turn as she “becomes” them. But, of course, you don’t need those clues, you just have to listen.
Backed by a capable three piece band consisting of keyboards, bass guitar, and drums, Robinson is able to recreate some of the most famous vocal performances of all time. She begins with the expressive, gossamer tones of Kate Bush, singing one of the lesser known songs, “Wow” before breaking in with a brief monologue which is in fact an excerpt from an interview Kate Bush did many years ago. The impersonation is uncanny.
Robinson repeats this formula with each successive diva: Shirley Bassey, Karen Carpenter, Edith Piaf, Dolly Parton, Miley Cyrus, Barbra Streisand, Maria Callas, Amy Winehouse, and Judy Garland.
It doesn’t feel like ten different routines, though. The whole thing is seamlessly held together by a very intelligently written script.
Each piece moves onto the next through a pivotal phrase or some other connective tissue. The sections of spoken word between each song are more than another clever show of impersonation. In each instance, the artist is speaking about a point in their life, their career, or about their music that takes on a particular poignancy in light of what we later learned about them.
Robinson doesn’t stop at all through the entire show – always singing or speaking and moving to different points on the stage. Yet, there is no lag, not a dull moment in the whole hour and a half.
See this brilliant talent if you can. She is diva to the power of 10.
