Review: Jeff Dingle as Bruno Mars
Jeff Dingle is a truly talented impersonator of the equally talented Bruno Mars. Jeff took to the Felixstowe Spa stage wearing Bruno-style clothes: casual, ‘street’ yet very stylish, whilst emulating Bruno’s dancing style, and his singing and speaking voice brilliantly. Accompanying Jeff was his three-piece band – The Hooligans and his four female dancers – The Angels.
Together the eight performers heavily impressed the Felixstowe crowd. There were lots of costume changes for the dancers and a memorable cat-walk type show to the song Young Girls. This song saw the dancers wearing costumes similar to those worn by the folies bergere at Moulin Rouge – all the costumes being extremely glamourous and generally quite revealing.
Jeff confidently performed many of Bruno’s greatest hits, including: 24K, That’s What I Like, Locked Out of Heaven and Marry You – the latter involving the dancers wearing gorgeous short wedding dresses.
A highlight of the show was Jeff performing the very moving song, When I Was Your Man. It was sung with wonderful emotion and there was a brief prelude where Jeff asked the audience for a show of hands relating to being in love or having suffered heartache - both experiences relevant to the lyrics of the song.
Jeff’s warm interaction with the audience was both fun and uplifting. He asked a lady in the audience what she was wearing (meaning which ‘designer label’), to which she replied ‘New Look’. This led nicely into him performing Versace on the Floor, complete with two of his dancers wearing classic Versace print leotards – a smooth link if ever there was one.
Jeff mentioned that Bruno Mars was influenced by several artists in his early years, this included Elvis and Michael Jackson, to name but a few. He then referred to Bruno’s appreciation of reggae music and launched into Could You Be Loved by Bob Marley.
As well as writing songs for himself, Bruno Mars has penned many songs for other artists. One such artist was Amy Winehouse. During the show, Jeff sang the upbeat song Valerie, which he dedicated to the memory of Amy. There was also a performance of the Cee Lo Green song, Forget You and Forget Her Too, which Bruno wrote. Both songs were delivered with style and professionalism.
In short, the entire evening was highly entertaining and enjoyable – well done to the extremely likeable Jeff Dingle and his crew for all their efforts.
Reviewed by Gill Atacocugu
