Theatre review: Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh ****
In essence, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is about a teenage boy, in a northern English town, who just knows that he wants to be a drag queen, and whose loving single mum Margaret has brought him up to have confidence in himself exactly as he is. Jamie’s refusal to comply with macho norms causes problems at school, on the street, and with his bigoted estranged Dad; and all of this is charted through a terrific series of songs, ranging from classroom company numbers Work Of Art and Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, to Margaret’s show-stopping mother-love anthem, He’s My Boy.
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Hide AdIn this UK touring production, Layton Williams is a slightly subdued but appealing Jamie, Amy Ellen Richardson a superb Margaret; and with a fine twenty-strong cast throwing themselves passionately into the spirit of the story, and some sparkling choreography by Kate Prince to drive the show along, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie glitters its way to a happy ending that’s both satisfying, and subtle enough to suggest that Jamie’s story is only just beginning.
Next at His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, 28 April-2 May, and King’s Theatre, Glasgow, 8-13 June.
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