The Drifters Girl – Opera House, Manchester and Touring

Miles Anthony Daley in The Drifters Girl at the Opera House, Manchester and Touring. Picture: The Other Richard

The Drifters Girl continues at the Opera House, Manchester until 14 October 2023, before continuing on its UK and Ireland tour until 11 May 2024.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

The Drifters occupy an unusual place in the pantheon of pop music history. Despite having a career spanning 60 years, and being responsible for some of popular music’s most beloved and enduring songs (‘Save the Last Dance For Me’, ‘Under the Boardwalk’, ‘Saturday Night at the Movies’), a constant rotating roster of personnel – more than 60 members since their inception in 1953 – means that they perhaps don’t quite have the same recognition or following as other, more consistently staffed acts that haven’t been around for as long or have had half as much success.

And, crucially for a jukebox musical, while many people will be familiar with their songs, they might not actually be aware that it was The Drifters who recorded them. This might explain why, despite being stuffed to the gills with memorable tunes and featuring a talented cast lead by vocal powerhouse Beverley Knight, this musical left the West End after a relatively short five-month run at the Garrick last year.

Sensibly, the question of exactly who The Drifters are is placed at the heart of Ed Curtis’ book. The narrative device of an upcoming court case, in which the band’s long-term manager Faye Treadwell must fight a rival promotor for the sole right to use the Drifters name, is the engine through which the story of the soul vocal group is told.

This complicated backstory was both a weakness and a strength of the original production and so it proves here with this new touring version. And, despite featuring an undoubtedly talented cast, without Knight, the show now feels like it is missing its star attraction.

Stepping into her not-inconsiderable shoes as Faye on this tour is Carly Mercedes Dyer, but on press night in Manchester, the role was played by first cover Loren Anderson, who did a great job in what must have been daunting circumstances.

The story begins in the mid-1950s when The Drifters are already a going concern and a chance encounter with Nat King Cole leads Arkansas schoolteacher Faye Johnson into a professional, then romantic, entanglement with the band’s original manager George Treadwell. Jonathan Church’s always entertaining production then races through three decades of the band’s history, as Faye and George marry and we make our way back to the ultimately successful court case and a triumphant performance at the White House.

Curtis’ book steers through the ups and downs of their career, and Faye’s battles in a male-dominated industry, in an engaging fashion. The script constantly finds inventive and amusing ways for the four male performers who play the various members of the band through the years (Miles Anthony Daley, Ashford Campbell, Tarik Frimpong and Dalton Harris) – including a short stint being fronted by Ben E King – to multitask as a variety of record producers, hotel staff, racist police and managers that they meet along the way.

Designer Anthony Ward’s simple set of sliding panels, strikingly lit by Ben Cracknell, also ensures that these scenes are slickly and smoothly staged throughout.

But, despite threads involving the sudden death of Faye’s husband George, the sad early demise of the band’s troubled lead singer Rudy Lewis and the toll Faye’s career takes on her relationship with her daughter (Jaydah Bell-Ricketts engaging in the show’s only non-singing role), it doesn’t quite have the emotional resonance or consistency of something like Dreamgirls, which took the story of Diana Ross and The Supremes as an obvious starting point but was free to forge its own fictious narrative path.

Things settle down a bit more in the second half when the story moves into the early 1970s and the band decamp to record in London and tour Britain, a period of their career that UK audiences of a certain age will be most familiar with. This era saw them record some of their biggest hits – like ‘Kissin’ in the Back Row of the Movies’, ‘There Goes My First Love’ and ‘Come On Over to My Place – and the production benefits from the more stable line-up, led by Johnny Moore, who is voiced mellifluously by X Factor winner Dalton Harris.

These sections, and the singalong finale, are proof that the show works best as a showcase for the band’s joyously foot-tapping songs, which soar thanks to Will Stuart’s on point vocal arrangements, Chris Egan’s slick orchestrations and a tightly drilled seven-piece band.

Chris Bartlett