“A formidable businesswoman,” is how one obituary summed up Faye Treadwell in 2011. Given her success and staying power, managing the long-lived R&B/soul vocal group The Drifters from 1967, through multiple iterations, until she retired in 2001, that’s a compliment as well as a character assessment.

The context of her rise from a humble background as the daughter of an Arkansas Baptist minister to record industry power-player called for an inner grit contrasting with the honeyed sounds the group purveyed: sexism, racism and narrow assumptions were the battlefields she fought across.

If you take The Drifters’ gem-stuffed back-catalogue and thread it through her story, along with the group’s, have you enough for a winning jukebox musical? Shows about talented women forging their path have proved big hits – witness Tina, celebrating la Turner, or Beautiful: The Carole King Story. Equally, as with the Berry Gordy story, in Motown, audiences respond to tuneful work charting the development of the music industry.

Judging by this world premiere production, directed by Jonathan Church, a lot of the necessary elements are in place for an evening that combines moments of visual style and aural satisfaction with a well-informed account of pioneering triumph. But while the audience at the Garrick was on its feet at the end, I rose with a spot of hesitation.

The sound of the show, I should declare, is exquisite, Beverley Knight leading the way and raising the roof at points in the title role. Yet the dramatic balance doesn’t feel quite right yet. As brought to life by an incredibly dynamic, shape-shifting quartet of actors – Adam J Bernard, Tarinn Callender, Matt Henry and Tosh Wanogho-Maud – the changing roster of men in the line-up, and in Treadwell’s life, repeatedly woo us with calculated charm.