Véronic DiCaire – Véronic Voices – London Hippodrome

Véronic Voices at the London Hippodrome.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

Competent. That’s the word that springs to mind while watching Véronic DiCaire – who performs as Véronic Voices – rattle through a succession of vocal impressions of famous pop, rock and blues singers.

Her impressions are all very competent. They are not particularly funny, but most of them are not intended to be; one or two are not particularly accurate (an imitation of Whitney Houston seems to be closer to Céline Dion doing her best Alexandra Burke-stars-in-The Bodyguard impression, while her Susan Boyle sounds more like Hilda Baker). But mostly, DiCaire nails the key part of the impression: sounding like the person being imitated.

Of course, it helps that most impressions are preceded by an announcement of whose voice is to be aped, either by DiCaire’s stilted intra-song banter or by an over-produced video whose every appearance threatens to kill the show’s momentum stone dead.

It’s very much the Jon Culshaw school of impressions: prime the audience’s mind with their memories of the original by flagging up who you’re doing, and your impression need only nudge at some familiar points to become effective.

An exception to this approach comes in a sequence which is, as a result, all the more impressive, as DiCaire rattles through a succession of women singers from her (and her audience’s) childhood, from Toni Basil to ‘Rhythm Nation’-era Janet Jackson, via Pat Benatar and Cyndi Lauper.

Even here, though, there is an over reliance on highly-produced backing tracks, many of which include supporting vocals that tend towards over-shadowing the live impression. Despite sharing the Hippodrome stage with a four-piece band, at many points they appear to be reduced to adding a little live texture to the recordings.

DiCaire’s song introductions are, on occasion, baffling. Clearly scripted to be funny, they are delivered with little to no conviction and understanding of the joke, nor with a great connection to the following song.

If introducing Shakira as a cross between a Latino Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy, it helps if the subsequent impression comedically highlights the supposed similarities; when saying that to sing Christina Aguilera, one must “find your growl”, it would help by starting a song at a suitable point to show off that part of her repertoire, rather than with a sweet and anodyne verse that actually shows the range of tone of which Aguilera is more than capable.

It is all so frustrating. There is no doubt that DiCaire possesses genuine talent at mimicry, but somewhere along the line she has tried to become a comedian too. Her most impressive sequences are the ones where she drops the backing tracks and videos, and just performs in full seriousness with her onstage band. Then the effect is glorious.

A sign of what could be comes in the encore – and not just the way it is sufficiently delayed for it to feel like a genuine response to audience reaction rather than anything pre-planned. But as DiCaire launches into an impression of Celine Dion’s ‘All By Myself’, a break out of character before attempting that note shows some genuine warmth and character. That is the side of Véronic DiCaire that one would wish to see throughout.

Scott Matthewman

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