Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (or Dusty Springfield as she is better known) is arguably one of Britain's best female pop singers. In this film biography of her she is interviewed - and frequently interrupted - by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, but she still manages to talk about her life and her music, including her childhood, her involvement with Motown and her "deportation" from South Africa for playing to mixed audiences. Her success she says was because "people gave me good songs. To be given songs by Burt Bacharach was such a joy."
Fans will not be disappointed by the mass of archive footage. Clips range from an enthusiastic early performance by the Springfields of "Wimoweh", through an extraordinary duet with Jimi Hendrix to her more recent hit with the Pet Shop Boys. And, of course, there's film of her singing all her hits. Among them are "I Only Want to Be with You", "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me", "Son of a Preacher Man" and "I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten".
The programme is peppered with accolades from people such as Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach, Martha Reeves and Elvis Costello, who says Dusty Springfield has "one of the greatest voices in pop music. I don't think she's got credit for that, because people concentrate on the.... hair and the eyelashes and the hand movements."
An Initial production for BBCtv
Andrew Duncan interview with Dusty Springfield
See Feature page 26