Daily Mail

Meet Jamie, the new Billy Elliot

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AFTER a short run in Sheffield, teenage dragqueen musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie has sashayed into the West End. It is pretty good fun, even if it feels derivative — a cross between Billy Elliot and Priscilla Queen Of The Desert.

Inspired by a real-life story, schoolboy Jamie New, 16, is told by his careers teacher’s psychometr­ic tests that when he leaves school he should become a forklift-truck driver or a prison guard. Yet all he yearns to be is a drag queen.

Jamie horrifies his teacher by announcing that he intends to attend his end-of-year prom in a dress. You can’t do that, says the teacher. Yes I can, avers Jamie, in best Gloria Gaynor mode. As battles for liberty go, it may be some way short of the apartheid struggle or votes for women or the repeal of the Corn Laws.

Never mind! This show has a sense of humour, some bubbly songs, Yorkshire repartee and a great central performanc­e from John McCrea as stiletto-heeled Jamie.

I suppose you could also make something of the fact that it plugs into the current political fashion for gender selfdeterm­ination, but what is refreshing is that this show is pretty much unburdened by illiberal grievance politics.

Apart from Jamie encounteri­ng some minor hassle from a classmate and from his father — and an unconvinci­ng scene when he is beaten up by three thugs — the story reflects the live-and-let-live attitude to cross- dressing found in most of 21st century Britain.

In our local town in Herefordsh­ire there is a bloke with sideburns who dresses up in pink frocks and no one minds in the slightest.

Well, I might have a few concerns about the candy pink, but you know what I mean. We live in a country where the Archbishop of Canterbury, no less, thinks schoolboys should be allowed to wear tutus and frocks if they so wish.

Mr McCrea really is fabuloso: rake skinny, tall, topped by a peroxide hairdo and able to show vulnerabil­ity alongside camp sarcasm.

Josie Walker gives fine support playing Jamie’s single-parent mother and she has two of the night’s better songs, If I Met Myself Again and He’s My Boy.

The songs by Dan Gillespie Sells and Tim MacRae certainly don’t outstay their welcome. I could have done with at least one more verse of a song when Jamie describes his love for his mum.

Some of the music is too loud and the lyrics are indistinct. Sound problems or early-run nerves, perhaps.

THE most theatrical moment comes at the end of the first half when Jamie is about to do his first drag show (the kindly boss of the drag club tells the lad, ‘ you can borrow some tits from the tit box’ — a line to cherish).

Less endearing is Jamie’s response to his teacher’s advice to ‘keep it real’. He replies: ‘Real is for little people.’

Much more of that sort of hauteur and the show might lose its warmth and the strong public support evident from Tuesday night’s audience.

‘Be individual,’ goes one of the closing numbers. ‘ Don’t be so samey.’ Given the similariti­es to the Billy Elliot formula, that is bold advice. Perhaps the real battle is fought by his mother, from a generation which had to confront rather greater societal hang-ups.

The real Mrs New was at the Apollo on Tuesday and she looked proper chuffed, as well she should.

 ??  ?? Fabuloso: John McCrea as drag queen Jamie Picture: ALASTAIR MUIR
Fabuloso: John McCrea as drag queen Jamie Picture: ALASTAIR MUIR
 ?? Quentin Letts ?? Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (Apollo Theatre) Verdict: Bravo for a drag queen teen ★★★★✩
Quentin Letts Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (Apollo Theatre) Verdict: Bravo for a drag queen teen ★★★★✩

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