This show started in development at Leicester Square Theatre and was featured in the King’s Place Songbook festival in September. Bookings are now being taken for music venues and arts festivals across the UK in 2012. For enquiries please contact kate@katedimbleby.com.
BEWARE OF YOUNG GIRLS : the SONGS OF DORY PREVIN
The Dory Previn Story sung and narrated by Kate Dimbleby with Naadia Sheriff on piano and vocals
A brand new showcase of songs and writing by cult favourite Dory Previn 40 years after the release of her most successful album Mythical Kings and Iguanas.
Kate Dimbleby, “One of the most versatile singers on the jazz-blues circuit” (The Times), has weaved the words of Dory Previn’s three autobiographies and songs from six solo albums for the first time to tell the incredible story of the Queen of 1970’s confessional songwriting.
A successful lyricist for MGM studios in the 50’s Dory (nee Langdon) met and married Andre Previn when she arrived in Hollywood. The songwriting duo went on to win several Academy Award nominations. The relationship broke down dramatically when Andre left Dory for a pregnant Mia Farrow. Dory, who had suffered from mental illness all her life and had been diagnosed “schizophrenic” had a breakdown and used a pen and paper as therapy where her fellow patients were encouraged to take up needle-work.
She wrote six albums, all autobiographical – including one of the best “revenge” songs ever written “Beware of Young Girls” (about the elfin Mia Farrow) and another “Twenty Mile Zone”, a humorous tribute to scream therapy and “letting it all out”
Dory Previn on herself :
Dimbleby performed a selection of Previn’s songs in a couple of scratch shows at Leicester Square Theatre earlier this year and was contacted by Joby Baker, Dory’s husband. With his encouragement, Dimbleby started to work on putting the show together and previewed it to great success at Hall One, King’s Place. On the way, she uncovered surprising devotees of the singer y including her director and friend Cal McCrystal (currently receiving great acclaim for his work on “One Man and Two Guvnors” at the National), Maureen Lipman who can recite every word and Jarvis Cocker who played Dory as one of his Desert Island Discs.
A CD to accompany the show will be released in 2012.
