Who could resist Everybody’s Talking About Jamie? Its hero’s scarlet stilettos make Dorothy’s red shoes look like Dr Martens. High-kicking its way from the Crucible in Sheffield, where it sold out at the beginning of this year, the show by Dan Gillespie Sells (music) and Tom Macrae (book and lyrics) brings feeling and freshness to the West End. There is slip-down-easy fizzing pop as well as brooding soul ballads. Crucially, the show’s origins in a real-life story with a 21st-century sensibility give its sunniness an edge. Director Jonathan Butterell cleverly saw that a TV documentary about Jamie Campbell, a 16-year-old boy who wanted to wear girls’ clothes, had a musical inside it. Well, it’s out now.
As Jamie has always been. He is witty and beautiful and has never been tormented by being gay. He does, though, have an immediate ambition which is making him anxious. He wants to go to the school prom in a frock. The careers adviser at his comp suggests he might have a future as a forklift truck driver.
Willowy John McCrea, as Jamie, is silvery-voiced and scissor-legged, so entirely beguiling that it’s clear he is going to triumph. There is not much drama when he confronts his enemies: the absent father who doesn’t think his son cuts the mustard as a chap; the school thug who muscles up sneering. Jamie is not about conflict but multiple celebration. Not least of people standing up for themselves. You are lightly made aware of how foul the opposition is. Best friend and sweet singer Pritti (Lucie Shorthouse) wears a hijab and specs, and has to put up with people calling her names because she is clever.
Jamie’s mother, bringing her son up alone, is not totally conventional either: perhaps that’s where he gets it from, sniffs the headmistress. He’s My Boy, soulfully delivered by Josie Walker, is likely to be a mum-son karaoke favourite. The whole evening floats on a beautifully choreographed crowd of schoolchildren – flying knees, bright blazers, excited hair. Disruptive and supportive. A true expression of this instant hit. What a cleverly self-fulfilling prophecy that title is. No wonder everybody’s talking about it.
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is at the Apollo, London, until 21 April