Jamie hits the road — yes, everybody’s talking about it
LAYTON WILLIAMS (right), who is currently in the West End playing the title role in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, will tour with the show to ensure that audiences in the regions see actors who have had their names in lights in London.
Shane Richie, who did a season at the Apollo, Shaftesbury Avenue, as dress shop owner Hugo and his drag queen persona Loco Chanelle, will join Williams on the road.
Williams will remain at the Apollo until January, and then go directly into rehearsals with Richie, other cast members and the creative team, led by director Jonathan Butterell and Dan Gillespie Sells and Tom MacRae, who wrote the music and book and lyrics.
The tour will begin at the Sheffield theatre where the musical originated. (The film version has been shooting on locations in the South Yorkshire city.)
It will then visit 19 other theatres and, in addition, play dates in August 2020 at the Koninklijk Theater Carre in Amsterdam.
Nica Burns, the impresario who runs the Apollo, among other theatres, and produces Jamie, said she and her team were keen to get Williams on tour.
‘He’s a real champion of regional theatre and it’s great to get him and Shane out there,’ she told me.
‘We are going to be searching for a new Jamie for London.
‘It’s a massive role and you have to be super fit to do it. It takes a huge amount of stamina.’
In the show, Jamie is a student who wants to celebrate his love of drag by wearing a frock to the school prom.