Christina Bianco’s LV performing at Mr Boo’s in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice. Picture: Pamela Raith
The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice, Glass Half Full Productions, York Theatre Royal, 7.30pm tonight and Friday; 2.30pm, 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
THE Rise And Fall Of Little Voice has a habit of rising again and again on a cycle of major tours.
It might even be argued that Jim Cartwright’s epic yet claustrophobically intimate tragi-comedy has been over-done, but its 30th anniversary is as good a reason as any for another revival.
This week’s run is not playing to big houses – most likely because the cost-of-living crisis is putting a tight squeeze on nights out, with holidays overseas taking priority, rather than Little Voice ennui – but Bronagh Lagan’s superb production deserves bigger audiences.
She has cast brilliantly, not only in the leads, Christina Bianco, Shobna Gulati and York-born Ian Kelsey, but also in the supporting Akshay Gulati, Fiona Mulvaney and the ever-welcome William Ilkley.
Cheesier than Mozzarella: William Ilkley’s tacky club owner Mr Boo. Picture: Pamela Raith
A decade ago, Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre opened its Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Stories season with ‘Little Voice’, that theme title summing up Cartwright’s bitter yet tender clash of the blitz and the glitz perfectly.
Lagan and set and costume designer Sara Perks retain the 1992 unspecified northern setting in Mari Hoff’s damp, run-down terrace-end house with its dodgy electrics, worn furniture, empty fridge, stack of booze bottles and on-the-blink meter. Excitement amounts to the installation of a new phone, bought on the never-never.
That only adds to the noise emanating constantly from Shobna Gulati’s heavy-drinking, needy motormouth Mari, flirting in the last chance saloon, while being neglectful of her daughter LV, yet smothering her all the while.
Drowned out by by man-eating Mari’s white noise, LV (American actress, singer and impersonator Christina Bianco) is reclusive (but not agoraphobic, she says). Spending days in her pyjamas, she listens to her late father’s vinyl collection in her bedroom, perfecting the vocal tropes and mannerisms of bygone divas Judy Garland, Edith Piaf, Shirley Bassey and Bianco’s new addition, Cilla Black.
As and when necessary, she cleans up after her wild-living mother, whose neediness finds her treating her sugar-guzzling, simple, oversized neighbour Sadie (Fiona Mulvaney) like a comfort blanket to be picked up and discarded on a whim.
Clinging on: Shobna Gulati’s Mari Hoff in a needy moment with Ian Kelsey’s Ray Say. Picture: Pamela Raith
Cartwright depicts a dysfunctional, desperate world where lives are stymied by circumstance, but the wish to fly, to escape, to dream, to live beyond means, is omnipresent. LV does so through those records, kept in immaculate condition; Mari does so by placing her eggs in her latest basket: Ian Kelsey’s viper-tongued artist manager Ray Say, who sees himself as “the king of this gutter”, always on the make, but yet to make it.
When he hears caged songbird LV singing upstairs, while he’s romping with Mari on the sofa, Ray thinks he has a pathway to gold at last, if only he can persuade her to perform in public at Mr Boo’s tacky club in town.
In the wrong hands, Cartwright’s northern drama can become nasty, brutish and brash, even a freakshow, especially Mari, but the key is to locate its heart and to bring balance, to not let the white noise dominate.
Anyone who saw Gulati’s Ray in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at Leeds Grand Theatre will not be surprised at her tour-de-force Mari: selfish, grotesque, restless, volatile, relentless, potty-mouthed, over-heated yet devoid of warmth, but vulnerable too, and as funny as she is tiresome.
Bianco has hankered after the role of LV for a decade and what a performance she delivers, mastering an Oldham accent, suitably quiet and diffident yet full of stage presence, and bringing the house down with her myriad voices.
Always on call: Akshay Gulati’s shy phone engineer Billy making one of his multiple unexpected visits to Christina Bianco’s even shier LV. Picture: Pamela Raith
Her contrasting chemistry with Gulati’s volcanic Mari and Akshay Gulati’s tentative, caring, in-the-shadows telephone engineer Billy is impressive too as he tentatively leads her towards the light and freedom. Pent up for so long, when LV finally speaks her mind to Mari, Bianco finds devastating new heights.
Kelsey’s Ray Say has a veneer of charm, but the dark desperation is always bubbling away beneath the sleek yet seedy surface, as the chancer turns to user and abuser. Kelsey’s Theatre Royal debut at 55 is long overdue in his home city, and we can only hope more powerhouse roles will follow here.
Meanwhile, William Ilkley’s Mr Boo, the club boss with the flatlining patter, is a delightfully observed cameo from clubland’s past.
Echoing the heightened language of Greek drama and Shakespeare, yet redolent of Fifties and Sixties’ kitchen-sink dramas too, Cartwright’s world of outsiders and leftovers elicits fears, cheers and finally tears as LV finds her voice.
In the closing words of Mari, “I beseech you, I beseech you, I beseech you” to buy a ticket this week.
Sara Perks’ set design for The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice with its cast of outsiders and leftovers: Christina Bianco’s LV (bedroom), Ian Kelsey’s Ray Say, Shobna Gulati’s Mari Hoff, Fiona Mulvaney’s Sadie and William Ilkley’s Mr Boo. Picture: Pamela Raith
Christina Bianco: Playing LV at last almost a decade after Jim Cartwright’s vow to “make it happen”
YORK has been on New Yorker Christina Bianco’s bucket list of British cities to visit for “the longest time”.
Glory be for the American actress, supreme impressionist and YouTube sensation, she will be at York Theatre Royal all this week, playing reclusive songbird LV in Jim Cartwright’s deeply dark comedy-drama The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice.
“I’m going to be all over that city, taking a million photos,” she vows. “Apologies to the locals of York for my camera being out and my blocking traffic in the streets! It’s one of those places, which, coming from America, you don’t believe is real. It looks like something out of Harry Potter! So yes, to finally be in York is truly amazing.”
Ahead of this week’s run, Christina already had a sneak preview of York in the company of co-star Ian Kelsey, who took her on a guided tour of his home city last month, taking in York Minster, the Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate street sign, a pub and the Theatre Royal stage.
From bucket list to wish list as Christina realises a long-held ambition to play LV. “When I was young growing up in New York, I always did impressions and loved singing many genres of music,” she says. “My parents tell me I had a natural instinct for mimicry, especially when it came to Judy Garland in The Wizard Of Oz.
Christina Bianco acquainting herself with York. Picture: Ant Robling
“For some reason, I always gravitated toward British culture, television, films and comedy, watching the video of Four Weddings And A Funeral when I was little, and later Monty Python, and there was something about the British sensibility that I just loved.
“One of my favourite things in the world to watch was Absolutely Fabulous. I especially loved Jane Horrocks in it, and I love how your comedies have such broad characters but deal with serious subjects. Something hit me about the difference with American comedies.”
Later, Christina’s father saw a review of York director Mark Hearld’s 1998 film adaptation of Cartwright’s play, Little Voice, starring the aforementioned Horrocks. “Given LV’s love for Judy and all the diva impressions, he said we had to see it. I was blown away by Jane Horrocks’ performance and, of course, by the story itself. I became a little obsessed with it!” she says.
First, Christina brought her talent for mimicry to the fore in Forbidden Broadway off-Broadway in 2008. “I was doing impressions in public for the first time and gratefully being well reviewed for doing so,” she recalls.
“It put me on the map as an impressionist, and over the next few years I pushed myself to try more and more impressions and to eventually build my own show – both because I was enjoying it and because I realised there was an audience for this sort of act. It was around this time I posted some impressions videos on YouTube and they started racking up some views.”
Ian Kelsey introduces Christina Bianco to York Theatre Royal on his guided tour of his home city. Picture: Ant Robling
Move the story forward to the summer of 2012, when Christina saw a notice that Little Voice was to go on a British tour, directed by Cartwright himself. “I’d never seen the show on stage before, so my husband and I planned a six-day trip to London…with my ulterior motive being to take a train to Guildford to see the show!” she says.
“My managers at the time suggested ‘Why don’t you write to Jim, introduce yourself and tell him how much you love the show?’.”
Cartwright duly wrote back to say “I’ve just watched your stuff online. You’re fabulous! Come to the stage door and we’ll chat”. “I ended up sitting down with Jim and talking about the show for quite some time,” says Christina.
“We stayed in touch and soon after, when some of my YouTube videos went viral and I had a run of sold-out shows at the Hippodrome, Jim came and said ‘we have to make LV happen for you’! That was in 2013. So, as you can see, doing this show has been a very long journey! Now, to finally get to do it, on this grand scale, with this incredible cast, is just thrilling.”
How come it still took so long to “make LV happen” after Cartwright’s vow? “We definitely have to rule out two years of Covid, of course, but the first reason was that I met him just as he was directing a big production of his play, so I knew I’d have to wait four or five years for another big production,” says Christina.
Christina Bianco’s LV performing her repertoire of diva impersonations at Mr Boo’s Club. Picture: Pamela Raith
“Then I was attached to a production that Jim gave his blessing to that was supposed to go to Broadway, but that didn’t happen after going through three different directors – but that’s the story of showbiz.
“Then, the really tricky thing is that in the UK ‘Little Voice’ is so loved and some people say it’s overdone, being done by regional theatres and colleges as well, so the wait went on.”
Nevertheless, Christina was undaunted in her pursuit of adding LV to her CV, and once producer Katy Lipson attained the rights to the play, she promptly contacted the American actress, having seen her vocal impressions in concert. “She said, ‘I want to work with you; what would you like to do? Come up with a couple of ideas’. I said I’d love to do LV before I can’t do it.”
Sure enough, despite a further delay, Christina’s LV has arrived “when I’m still not too long in the tooth” at 40. “When Jane Horrocks first did it, she was in her late-20s, and in the movie, she was in her 30s. LV is not in her teens; she’s emotionally regressed, staying in the emotional state of a child.”
Christina’s diva impersonations on LV’s bedroom floor and the northern club stage are drawn specifically from the vinyl record collection of LV’s late father. “Everyone probably expects me to come out and do Celine Dion but it’s not the right time period,” she says.
“I don’t like confrontation,” says Christina Bianco, who shares that characteristic with the reclusive LV in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice. Here Bianco’s LV keeps her distance from Ian Kelsey’s Ray Say and Shobna Gulati’s Mari Hoff. Picture: Pamela Raith
“What I will be doing, though, is attempting Cilla Black for the first time in my life. Everybody I impersonate in the show will be of the classic musical era LV’s father loved: Judy Garland, Edith Piaf, Shirley Bassey…”.
When adding a new diva to her repertoire, how does she master the voice? “It depends on the particular vocalist but typically I immerse myself with them for a couple of days. I listen to lots of their music before I watch any video footage of them.
“I like to get the essence of their voice first. Then I study their physicality in more detail. I try to take on as many mannerisms, characteristics and facial expressions as I can. Thank goodness everyone’s liking my Cilla; everyone’s clapping; no-one’s booing! I did have the fear of God put into me about singing You’re My World just right, but I made a point of knowing that she’d been told to sing it with a mid-Atlantic accent, which I’m doing.”
Christina’s biggest challenge is playing an introvert. “It’s very funny timing for me, with my last part being Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, who’s the polar opposite of LV. Fanny couldn’t help attracting attention, whereas LV is happy to fade into the background,” she says.
“Everyone says Fanny Brice is one of the most challenging roles of all time, and I don’t disagree. You never leave the stage except to change costume; you sing 12 songs, laugh, cry, dance and do physical comedy – the list goes on!
Pyjama drama: Christina Bianco’s LV singing in her bedroom. Picture: Pamela Raith
“But I can safely say I’m more nervous about doing Little Voice because I’m not an introvert. There’s the part of me that needs the platform to perform, though [away from the stage] I can be quite shy and I don’t like to stand out, so I’ve channelled that side of me. I don’t like confrontation too, and that part of me hasn’t changed with age.
“What many people wouldn’t know about me is that I’m an only child who’s happy to be alone, and if there’s no ideal platform for me to be on stage, if someone asks me to stand in front of a microphone I’ll shrink.”
Christina fully memorised the script before entering the rehearsal room. “I wanted to be as comfortable with the text as possible, in order to be fully comfortable performing it in a Northern accent,” she reasons.
“Sure, I’m good at accents but it’s a very different thing when you’re doing an accent in the place where that accent actually comes from. I’m not doing this show in New York. I’m doing a Lancashire accent for people in the north. That’s very intimidating!”
For that reason, she did consult a voice coach. “People have this assumption that if you’re good at vocal impressions, you’ll be good at accents too, but it’s so important that you’re comfortable in the accent. It’s either right or wrong, an accent, whereas an impression is an interpretation, and that’s different.
Christina Bianco and Ian Kelsey set out from York Theatre Royal on Ian’s guided tour. Picture: Ant Robling
“I worked with a voice coach on Zoom over lockdown to get the Oldham/Manchester accent, and as Katy Lipson is from Manchester, she’d let me know if I was getting it wrong!”
Christina notes how American and British audiences differ. “I think Americans kind of watch you, leaning back, giving off an ‘entertain me’ vibe. I feel a British audience leans forward a bit more. They come into you and your world. Both are great and I’m not trying to insult my home country but I do feel British audiences are a little more appreciative.
“On the other side of that, Americans are much more likely to leap to their feet at the end of the show! Over here you can give the best performance of your life and the audience cheers like crazy but they don’t always leap to their feet.
“It’ll be interesting to see the reaction to this play. It won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy but I personally don’t see it as a traditional comedy. I see it as a true drama that happens to have a lot of comedic moments – and I know Jim and our director, Bronagh Lagan, are really looking to bring out the heart at the centre of it. How people are imperfect, make mistakes and have rises and falls – but they persevere.
“Fear of ‘starting over’ is a big theme in the show and I think we can say we’re all having to start over now in many ways. On both sides of the pond, and all over the world. It’s very timely.”
“York is one of those places, which, coming from America, you don’t believe is real,” says Christina Bianco, here standing outside York Art Gallery. Picture: Ant Robling
Summing up why Cartwright’s play has resonated with audiences through 30 years, Christina says: “First of all, I think this play is a true love letter to the UK. It celebrates so many great British artists and their music.
“But the story itself is something everybody can relate to, regardless of whether or not they know the music in the play. The idea that no matter how difficult things get, you can still persevere and rise from the ashes. And I think that’s exactly the message we need after the last two years.
“It’s a story about not being afraid to try something different and starting again. We’ve all been through something together that has changed us, just as the characters in the play do.”
Christina hopes audiences will embrace her as an American performer, taking on such an iconic British character. “I’d like to think that I’ve earned some stripes working in the UK quite a bit already, so maybe that will help,” she says. “And I’ve actually just become a resident, along with my husband and our dog Jeff Vader. We all live here now [on a three-year visa in London], so you’re stuck with me!”
Jeff Vader, Christina? “I named the dog after an Eddie Izzard joke,” she reveals of a surrealist shaggy- dog story that took in the Death Star, a cafeteria, Lego, and yes, Jeff Vader.
The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice, starring Christina Bianco, Shobna Gulati and Ian Kelsey, runs at York Theatre Royal until July 9, 7.30pm, plus 2pm, Thursday and 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Shobna Gulati, Christina Bianco and Ian Kelsey in the tour poster for the Glass Half Full Productions tour of The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice
Ian Kelsey’s “king of the gutter” Ray Say has a quiet word with Christina Bianco’s reclusive songbird LV in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice. Picture: Pamela Raith
YORK actor Ian Kelsey returns to his home city to play viperous talent-spotting agent Ray Say in a new tour of Jim Cartwright’s bittersweet comedy The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice from Monday.
In doing so, he will be making his York Theatre Royal stage debut, although the former railway carriage works coach builder did hand out sweets in the guise of Mr Toffee in the foyer before performances of The Railway Children many moons ago in his “first professional gig”.
“I’ve seen many, many pantos and shows there but I’ve never performed there before,” says Ian. “I’m a little bit jittery about the maybe more critical eyes of people I went to school with or who I worked on the railway with. I also hope I don’t meet the Grey Lady [the Theatre Royal ghost]!”
Ian, 55, will be joined in Bronagh Lagan’s production for Glass Half Full Productions by Coronation Street star Shobna Gulati as Mari Hoff and New York actress and YouTube sensation Christina Bianco as LV (Little Voice).
Heavy-drinking, louche, loud Mari and reclusive LV are the contrasting mother and daughter in Cartwright’s fairy-tale, where LV is left to her own devices, embodying the famous divas she plays on repeat in her room, from Judy Garland to Shirley Bassey, from her late father’s record collection.
From New York to old York: Ian Kelsey introduces American actress Christina Bianco to the quirks of his home city. Picture: Ant Robling
When manipulative Ray Say hears that cloistered nightingale sing, he foresees an overnight sensation and a route to a pot of gold in a story of the highs and the lows of small-town dreams, family rivalry and finding your voice in a noisy world.
Ian is in a touring show for the first time since The Verdict in 2019. “I was isolating in Dublin for two weeks in a hotel, doing an ITV drama, when Dublin was in its Lockdown number five, only on set for an hour, and this job came through while I was there,” he recalls. “It was my first audition on Zoom, so I had to embrace this new way of working.”
Ian jumped at the chance to play “king of the gutter” Ray in Cartwright’s painfully truthful northern drama. “I’d not the seen the film or the play before, although I was aware of it and what it’s about. But I just started reading the script and found Ray so funny, as well as horrific at the same time,” he says. “How can you not say yes to playing Ray Say?!” he says.
“He’s a bit of a leech really and so self-centred. He uses people. I think he has a good heart, or he had one, but it’s clear he only thinks of himself when it comes to his relationship with Mari. He’s not interested in her once he realises he can better his life through the singing talents of her daughter.”
Halfway through, Ray’s character changes. “There’s a speech where he just rips into Mari at one point and I was gobsmacked by what he says, but it’s brilliantly written by Jim Cartwright,” says Ian.
“It’s clear Ray only thinks of himself when it comes to his relationship with Mari,” says Ian, pictured with Shobna Gulati’s clinging Mari Hoff. Picture: Pamela Raith
“He’s a fantastic writer and as you’re reading it you can hear it being said. The rhythms are just how people talk in the world in which it’s set. The characters don’t have much money, but they aspire to live above their station, which is also really funny.”
Can 6ft 3ins Ian relate to the intimidating Ray in any way? “I hope not! But when I’m reading a script, it really helps if I have someone in mind and all their nuances start to come into play.
“With Ray, I’ve got a couple of people in mind, although I don’t want to say who they are of course. I’ve met proper northern gangsters, who act like comedians, but all the time you’re thinking, ‘you’ve got something in your boots’. I can say, there’s also a bit of Johnny, who played my father in Coronation Street, in there too.”
After landing the role, Ian resisted any temptation to watch Michael Caine’s award-winning performance in York director Mark Hearld’s 1998 film. “I don’t want to be influenced by it, otherwise for the audience it will feel like I’m doing my take on his take,” he reasons.
“By not seeing the film, it’s all fresh coming off the page, so the vision of how to play Ray comes from my head.”
Ian Kelsey shows Christina Bianco the resplendent glory of York Minster
Before Ray Say, Ian has taken on several roles associated with film versions. “Such as when I played Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption, and that was ingrained in me because it’s one of my favourite films,” he says.
“In that instance, you can’t help but give a nod to iconic performances. I’ve done Danny in Grease and I completely pinched Travolta’s walk, the Danny strut. You can’t help pinching from the best.”
This time, Ian has taken a different approach, although he has discussed the role with a fellow actor and Jim Cartwright. “One of the lads out of Coronation Street had played Ray, so we had a really good chat about it, and then, when Jim was in the audience in early June, we got talking about different actors bringing their different trombones to it,” he says.
“You can bring a wheelbarrow of trombones to a comedy, and then after two weeks, you think, ‘OK, I need to hold back those trombones here’!
“What you have to do is to get back to the script and not bring a trombone to the party – although Jim loves trombones!”
Persuasive tongue: Ian Kelsey’s Ray Say tries to talk Christina Bianco’s LV into performing in public in The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice. Picture: Pamela Raith
Mark Hearld set Little Voice in Scarborough; Cartwright’s play, premiered in 1992, refers only to being set in a northern town. “I think Scarborough’s too big for it. There are too many Ray Says in that town,” says Ian. “It needs to be a one-club town. It needs to be smaller than Scarborough.
“Ray’s the king of that one-club town, which is why, when he hears LV sing, he can see the potential of exploiting her talent. I can only imagine going to perform in somewhere like Wakefield would be big news!”
Ian reflects on the significance of 1992 in his own life. “It’s weird because, I’m 55 now, and that was the year I came out of drama school at Guildford,” he says.
“I didn’t realise people from York could go to drama school: I’d come out of school at 16, did six years at the railway carriage works, doing a coach-building apprenticeship, and then a year at Carris & Son, at Poppleton, making oak-leaf conservatories.
“It was there that I got my allergy to cedar wood and they told me I’d have to wear a face mask – that sounds familiar! – when working for the rest of my career. That’s when I ‘flipped’ and decided to go to drama school, when I was already in my early 20s.
Shobna Gulati, Christina Bianco and Ian Kelsey in the tour poster for The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice
“Three years at drama school, and two years after that I got my first soap role in Emmerdale. They advised me to take five years off my age to get roles!”
Ian – definitely 55! – is enjoying his travels on tour. “Live theatre is different every night and you’re constantly trying to win the audience over. I learned so much doing [John Godber’s] September In The Rain about the set-up for comedy and it’s such a brilliant craft because you’re always learning new things. I don’t think I’ve ever done a job where I’ve not learned something,” he says.
“The thing I’ve been most looking forward to is taking my motorbike with me. One of the most difficult things about being on tour is filling the time between getting up and curtain-up. I’m not one for historical buildings and all that, and if you’ve been on the telly a bit you can’t just go and sit in a coffee bar for the afternoon without being recognised. So, it’s fantastic to just put a crash helmet on and go and explore.”
Already he has taken American co-star Christina Bianco on his own version of a guided tour of York. Come Monday, Ian and his bike will be all revved up with one place to go as he heads home to the city where he cut his performing teeth in Mike Thompson’s Rowntree Youth Theatre productions of Half A Sixpence, Kiss Me Kate and Some Like It Hot at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre. Now, he will have his Say at York Theatre Royal at last.
The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice runs at York Theatre Royal from July 4 to 9, 7.30pm plus 2pm, Thursday, and 2.30pm, Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Home at last: Ian Kelsey looks forward to his belated York Theatre Royal debut. Picture: Ant Robling
Shobna Gulati’s Ray, Amy Ellen Richardson’s Margaret and Layton Williams’s Jamie New in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie at Leeds Grand Theatre
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, Sheffield Theatres/Nica Burns, at Leeds Grand Theatre, until Sunday. Box office: 0113 243 0808 or at leedsheritagetheatres.com. *****
EVERYBODY’S been talking about Everybody’s Talking About Jamie coming to the Leeds Grand for ages: a two-year wait for early bookers after Covid shut down fun.
“The hit musical for today” began life at Sheffield Crucible Theatre in 2017 and finally makes the 44-mile trip to Leeds after West End success and a screen conversion to film release in September.
Inspired by the Firecracker documentary Jamie: Drag Queen At 16, composer Dan Gillespie Sells (from the pop band The Feeling) and writer/lyricist Tom MacRae worked their magic from an original idea by director and co-writer Jonathan Butterell.
What emerged was the completion of a populist trilogy of Sheffield comedy dramas: the defiant spirit and sheer balls of The Full Monty, the classroom politics and fledgling frustrations of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, and now Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, the unapologetic story of the boy who sometimes to be wants to be a girl, wear a dress to the school prom and be a drag queen.
Now you can throw in the sass, the too-cool-for-school dress sense and the multi-cultural diversity of Sex Education, the Netflix binge-watch through lockdowns, as another barometer of Jamie’s topicality for our changing times and attitudes towards gender, bigotry, bullying, homophobia, absentee fathers and the right to self-expression.
Take a chance, if you have the time pre-show, to cast an eye over the programme’s pocket-profiles of Mayfield School Class of 2020, asking Jamie and his classmates: What do you want to be when you grow up? What’s your favourite thing about school? It could be any comprehensive classroom of 16-year-olds, capturing hopes, aspirations and realities with wit and spot-on social awareness. Another testament to just how switched on, relevant, yet boldly humorous this show is.
“Jamie”, on the one hand, is a classic teen rebel story, told from the teen perspective of Jamie New (Bury-born Layton Williams, reprising his West End role), but it is not merely a down-with-the-kids high-school musical.
Class act: Layton Williams’s Jamie New and his Mayfield School classmates in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
Even more so than in Hairspray, it gives the adult viewpoint too, whether Jamie’s world-weary but ever supportive mum Margaret (Amy Ellen Richardson, expressed powerfully through her belting ballads, If I Met Myself Again and He’s My Boy); gobby best friend Ray (Shobna Gulati, wonderful); Jamie’s stay-away Dad (Cameron Johnson); narrow-minded teacher Miss Hedge (Lara Denning), or dress-shop boss Hugo/veteran drag act Loco Chanelle (special guest Shane Richie as you have never heard or seen him before but will want to again!).
Serious points are made, confrontations have both poignancy and punch, but what’s not to love about the sheer bl**dy Yorkshireness of it all: from the frank, no-nonsense humour that mocks the ridiculous careers advice offered at schools to the raucous, rough-rouge glamour, tattoos and all, of Sheffield drag queens Sandra Bollock (Garry Lee), Laika Virgin (JP McCue) and Tray Sophisticay (Rhys Taylor), as musical pizzazz meets kitchen-sink drama.
The songs are a knock-out, led off by the immediately infectious And You Don’t Even Know It, through the irresistible title number and Jamie’s heartfelt Ugly In This Ugly World, to the show-closing defining statement of Out Of The Darkness (A Place Where We Belong). Sam Coates’s band have a ball with Gillespie Sells’ orchestrations.
Matt Ryan’s direction, Kate Prince’s choreography and Anna Fleischle’s designs are all fast-moving and slick but with room for grit too amid the glitter. You will note the brick designs on the side of the desks, for example.
Not only Williams’s Jamie scores high marks among the classroom performances, so too do George Sampson’s everybody-hating, self-loathing bully Dean Paxton and Sharan Phull’s self-assured, doctor-in-waiting Pritti Pasha.
Yet, of course, everyone is talking about Williams’s Jamie New, so restless at sweet 16 to be “something and someone fabulous”. His Jamie is a mover, a peacock groover, a fantabulous fusion of lip and lip gloss, high heels and higher hopes, outwardly confident yet naïve, in that teenage way, and vulnerable too. What a performance.
Yorkshire has given us Billy Liar’s Billy Fisher, Kes’s Billy Casper, and now Jamie New, disparate young dreamers in need of escape from the grey grime, but this time the story is so, so uplifting, emerging from darkness into the spotlight (and mirroring the return of live theatre from Covid quarantine to boot).
Review by Charles Hutchinson
Remaining performances: tonight, 7.30pm; tomorrow and Sunday, 2.30pm and 7.30pm.
