Theatre
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
Neil Cooper
Four stars
Life is probably a drag for any sixteen-year-old on the verge of the big bad world where a life of dead-end drudgery awaits. Such twenty-first century adolescent ennui is amplified times ten with extra added dance moves for Jamie New, the high-kicking teenage hero of composer Dan Gillespie Sells and writers Tom MacRae and Jonathan Butterell’s west end hit. Touring in the UK for the first time, Matt Ryan’s production for Sheffield Theatres sees Layton Williams slip into Jamie’s scarlet stilettoes and glad rags once more following his own west end run en route to enlightenment, empowerment and a brand new life.
Jamie’s story draws from a real-life soap opera that was in part played out on reality TV, giving an extra edge to its prime time depiction of low-expectation lives taking a leap towards somewhere brighter. This is achieved with a feelgood sleight of hand in a rites of passage yarn designed to inspire generations of would-be Jamies while calling for the sort of grown-up tolerance the world could probably do with a bit of just now.
As Jamie moves from classroom to catwalk by way of Shane Richie’s jaded drag queen Hugo’s dressing up box of a shop, once he puts on a frock he discovers he can deal with all of his demons, be it his errant dad or schoolboy thug Dean Paxton. Wise words come from Jamie’s classmate Pritti, played by Sharan Phull, and by Amy Ellen Richardson as Jamie’s beleaguered mum, Margaret. Surfing a Spartacus moment outside the school prom with attitude aplenty, Jamie is brought to life by Williams with sass, pizazz and just the right amount of vulnerability.
With a set of pop showtunes accompanied by shape-throwing ensemble routines choreographed by Kate Prince on Anna Fleischile’s versatile classroom set, this might just be the most enlivening onstage example yet of how the geek inherit the earth.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here