Close-Up: The Twiggy Musical review: Ben Elton’s jukebox musical skirts around the big issues

Twiggy’s life story might seem like a slender, unlikely thing to hang a whole musical on. The ubiquitous, big-lashed modelling pics in the ‘60s, the smattering of film roles in the ‘70s, that M&S fashion line in the 2010s... it’s not exactly narrative gold. But over dinner with her good mate Ben Elton (writer of Blackadder and We Will Rock You), the pair cooked up the idea for this show, and it’s an unexpected if deeply unsubtle treat: a hit-stuffed homage to a working-class girl who rose to impossible-seeming heights.

The whole musical is narrated by Twiggy herself, as played by Elena Skye – who both looks the part and boasts a gutsy voice that’s perfect for songs by ‘60s sirens like Lesley Gore and Petula Clark. It’s the kind of approach you’d associate more with an embattled one-woman fringe show than a high-budget musical but it just about works here. Skye’s down-to-earth, Neasden-accented narration punctures the glamour of swinging London, whipped up here by Jonathan Lipman’s lavish, catwalk-worthy costume design and Jacob Fearey’s kitschy choreography.

“I was called androgynous – that’s posh for no tits,” she tells us self-deprecatingly, as she lands a fashion career at the age of 15 by posing in the gamine, swirly-patterned minidresses she runs up on her sewing machine. But first, she picks up a creepy older boyfriend-turned-manager: 25-year-old Justin de Villeneuve (Matt Corner), a pretentious chancer who collects her from grammar school in his fancy motor. It’s a storyline that’s especially hard to style out after the Russell Brand allegations earlier this month, but Elton tries his darndest. In a blindingly crass scene, her parents sing schmaltzy hit “Take Good Care of My Baby” to her older lover, the irony as pungent as a matinee idol’s aftershave. “It was the ‘60s, sexy schoolgirls were all part of the culture,” opines Twiggy, explaining that it only seems wrong in retrospect.

Close-Up: The Musical treads a weird line. Writer Elton is massively aware of how much things have changed since the ‘60s, so Twiggy peppers her story with welcome nods to present-day concepts like body-shaming, gaslighting, and toxic masculinity – all of which she gets her fair share of as a teenage supermodel. But layering the narrative with constant hindsight also makes it harder to understand what it actually felt like to be young back then, her painful vulnerability softened by nostalgia and catchy retro singalongs.

The later scenes have more emotional bite, as Twiggy moves to LA to marry a former cowboy movie star who turns out to be an abusive alcoholic, and is left taking on endless film and stage roles to support herself and her daughter. She’s come so far from her working-class roots – but never far enough to luxuriate in financial security. Elton’s most biting insights into Twiggy’s story are all class-based. He paints the ‘60s as a brief, golden window of a social mobility, and her success as a victory for every ordinary hardworking woman (her mother, brilliantly played by Hannah-Jane Fox, revels in her triumphs).

Still, there’s something distastefully jaunty about Elton’s approach to the darker sides of Twiggy’s story, any trace of gloom instantly dispelled with a pat one-liner or technicolour song-and-dance number. Despite the title of the show, this isn’t really Twiggy in close-up: instead, it’s her life painted in big, broad brushstrokes, as garishly appealing as the pattern on a Pucci print mini dress.

Menier Chocolate Factory, until 18 November