If Bob’s your bag, don’t miss this treat

You’ve got to pay tribute to anyone who can mimic his musical idol so convincingly – and Bill Lennon has Bob Dylan down to a T.

Rake thin, the slightest of sneers – pale, but interesting too – Lennon walks the walk and talks the talking blues brilliantly in his new stage show, The Bob Dylan Story.

Don’t think twice: this is a 1960s Dylan at the height of his poetic powers, complete with trademark electric shock hair and the coolest of beatnick shades, though that’s the easy part, admittedly.

With so much attention to period detail, you’d be right in thinking Lennon’s singing isn’t be too shabby either and, so far, the critics seem impressed. Now you can find out for yourself at Pitlochry Theatre on 30th September.

Lennon is no one-trick pony. He’s already turned in thoroughbred performances as Keith Richard in the Counterfeit Stones – see above for style notes – and as James Taylor in the stage production, You’ve Got A Friend.

What promises to give this show the edge over conventional tribute acts – which often demand a gravity-defying suspension of disbelief – is the wider historical background it provides.

Lennon’s intimate knowledge of the singer is impressive. You suspect that when, in his breakthrough hit Blowin’ in the Wind, Dylan sings rhetorically ‘how many roads must a man walk down?’, Lennon quite possibly knows the answer.

This multimedia show recreates most of the Nobel-prize winning singer’s classic hits, including Mr Tambourine Man, Like A Rolling Stone and the aforementioned Don’t Think Twice, while recounting some of the fascinating tales behind them.

Supported by an ace backing band, Lennon takes his audience back to the era of Vietnam, anti-war and civil rights protests, and of course, timeless music.

Supported by an ace backing band, Lennon takes his audience back to the era of Vietnam, anti-war and civil rights protests, and of course, timeless music.

“We wanted to give Dylan’s many fans the opportunity to hear the songs as they remember them, all in one sitting” explains Bill.

“And although many of Dylan’s songs were hits for other artists, from Hendrix’s All Along The Watchtower right up to Adele’s Make You Feel My Love, we remain true to the original versions.

“We are confident the show will have people digging out their old vinyl to sustain the nostalgia just that little bit longer.”

The audience can expect a show that’s affecting and uplifting in equal measure. Imagine a Dylan concert in his full mid-sixties pomp, throw in some carefully chosen visual projections to set the scene, a few stories about Dylan’s life and songs, and you get the picture.

Although there have been other Dylan tributes, Lennon felt that only a proper theatre show could do his long-running love affair with the great man’s music justice.

Lennon also remembers hearing Positively 4th Street and Like A Rolling Stone back to back on the radio when he was a teenager and the sound of those records just blowing him away.

“My dad had The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan on vinyl when I was a kid,” recalls Bill, “and I fell in love with it. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right –  which we do in the show – is the one that really sticks out for me from that album. It seems to be a fans’ favourite too.”

There are around 25 songs in the show, of which Quinn The Eskimo – a massive hit for Manfred Mann – and Rainy Day Women are Lennon’s high spots, he says, simply because the band has so much fun with them, as does the audience.

Which songs the audience react to the most depends on their own preferences but there are, according to Lennon, some very poignant moments.

“We know A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall has reduced some to tears,” says Bill, “not least because of the accompanying visual imagery and the continuing relevance of its message; Knocking On Heaven’s Door and Forever Young are particularly emotional moments too.”

Lennon says the trickiest part about performing isn’t trying to capture Dylan’s – let’s not beat about the bush here – ‘distinctive’ voice, but rather committing all of his lyrics to memory.

“As for the band,” Bill muses, “it’s all about reproducing the sounds and notes as authentically as possible so that the audience hears the songs the way they remember them.

“They’ve done a fantastic job. They’re all brilliant musicians as well as being fans of the music and this show is lucky to have them.” And, says Lennon, the world is lucky to have Dylan, whose 2016 Nobel Prize for literature caught many off guard.

“It was a surprising choice on the face of it,” says Bill, “but he’s certainly earned it, considering his contribution to popular culture over the last half century.

“People will say ‘but it’s not literature’, yet I challenge anyone to read the lyrics to songs like Tangled Up In Blue, Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall, Subterranean Homesick Blues and then tell me the guy’s not a poet.”

Judge for yourselves at Pitlochry on 30th September: the curtain goes up at 8pm.

Cometh the hour – whether you’re a committed fan or a casual listener – Dylan’s line from Mississippi looks set to ring true: ‘stick with me baby, stick with me anyhow; things should start to get interesting right about now …’

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The Bob Dylan Story, produced by 4th Street Entertainment Ltd, appears at Pitlochry Festival Theatre on Sunday, 30 September at 8pm. Call the box office on 01796 484 626 or book online at www.pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com