Tom Jones actor can't keep up with star

BELTER in the Valleys: Kit Orton stars as Tom Jones

Tom, A Story of Tom Jones, the Musical

The Lowry, to May 28

SADDLED with the dreariest and unnecessarily longest title of any musical currently doing the rounds (and one whose "A" suggests it might not be entirely true), Tom etc, like so many musicals before it, portrays the least interesting bit of its subject's life.

We are shown the Welsh treasure's early days: married and a father at 16, charismatic singer and front man of a dismally ordinary South Wales band that toured endless Fifties and Sixties working men's and pit social clubs for a couple of quid a night, a mill worker by day (ironically kept out of the pits by "weak" lungs), and a chap unable to resist the temptations of female fans, or indeed singing, by night.

Ordinary

All that shouldn't be dull but it is, because in his twenties Jones - like other people we now know as stars, was pretty ordinary: only a powerful voice separated him from his friends.

This should mean that when star of the show Kit Orton picks up the microphone, the evening warms up greatly. To an extent it does - except Jones was an RnB man at heart, singing the weaker end of the blues spectrum to an audience mostly older than himself.

This has always been Jones' problem, revealed fairly clearly (though I suspect by accident) here: Jones sprang full-formed with "It's Not Unusual" as a singer for your mum and dad. While the Stones and Beatles were creating the new pop, Jones was peddling awful songs like "Chills and Fever" and the sentimental "Green Green Grass of Home".

Jones' career since has jumped in fits and starts, from years out of the limelight to covers of Prince, Talking Heads and others, often with great success.

This bio-musical comes from Neath company Theatr na NOg ("Theatre of Eternal Youth") and might seem appropriate for the now veteran star of 'The Voice'. As a show it is simple, with narrated scenes that try hard not to be a simple procession of events, with odd cameo appearances featuring producer Joe Meek and Jones' first manager, Gordon Mills.

Kit Orton's performance is fairly accurate vocally but lacks the one thing that stands Jones out from the crowd: a remarkable animal magnetism.

Jones has so much of it girls used to throw their underwear at him; Orton hasn't, but acts like he has.