Tammy Faye
Almeida, London, until December 3
Any musical with a score by Sir Elton John inevitably raises expectations unreasonably high and I’d expected Tammy Faye to be nothing less than a theatrical “event”.
In the event, it turns out to be a perfectly affable, mildly amusing, 10-a-penny show about the golden girl of American television evangelism – and that’s about it. I certainly didn’t wake up the next morning humming any of the big numbers – which is the customary after-effect of going to see a great musical – nor, for that matter, did I feel that I had got to know Tammy especially well.
Were there any utterly hilarious one-liners in it that I’d want to share with everyone in the office? No. Did I think it had something important to say for itself? Search me.
Maybe there were just too many big egos involved in the production – what with Jake Shears from The Scissor Sisters writing the lyrics, Rupert Goold directing and James Graham providing the script – for it ever to have stood a chance of emerging with a single, strong, coherent personality of its own.
There aren’t any big stars in the cast and maybe that’s why they collectively save the day. Katie Brayben is wonderfully camp and ridiculous as the show’s eponymous heroine and there’s an amusing chemistry between her and Andrew Rannells as her Tiggerish first husband, Jim Bakker. Zubin Varla and Peter Caulfield throw themselves into the roles of rival TV evangelists Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham respectively with great aplomb.
There are some interesting moments, such as when Tammy invites a pastor with Aids on to her show, but the motivations of the pastor for going on the show, and Tammy for inviting him on, are not properly explored. A show about shallow people really shouldn’t be so shallow itself.
Maybe if I’d been kept in ignorance of Sir Elton’s involvement or hadn’t seen Jerry Springer The Opera – an eminently better and more assured takedown of plasticky American television characters – I’d have found more reason to praise the lord for Tammy Faye.
