Theatre review: Everybody's Talking About Jamie

In what must be the first West End musical to be based on a BBC3 documentary, Dan Gillespie Sells (music) and Tom MacRae's (book and lyrics) Everybody's Talking About Jamie transfers to the Apollo from Sheffield, where it's set and where it premiered earlier this year. Jamie (John McCrea) is 16 and facing pretty dispiriting careers advice from his sour-faced form teacher Miss Hedge (Tamsin Carroll,) but he's already got very different and specific plans for how to make a living: He's never really been in the closet about his sexuality but the fact that he's always liked dressing up in his mother's clothes is more of a secret; but now, realising that it can actually be a job (there's a hat-tip to "Our Lady RuPaul,") he wants to be a drag queen when he grows up, and sees no reason not to get started straight away.

Theatre review: Closer to Heaven

Snatching Romeo & Juliet's crown as the most nipple-thrusting show in Southwark, Closer to Heaven is the latest in the Union's attempts to turn West End flops into fringe hits. This one certainly seems to have done the trick, the Jonathan Harvey / Pet Shop Boys musical sold out long before it had even opened. Recent "Irish" arrival Straight Dave (Jared Thompson) is so called because he really is straight, but he does seem a bit insecure in his sexuality, possibly because of all those men he turns out to have slept with. He tries to suppress this side of himself in the most masculine job he can think of, as a go-go dancer in a gay club, while dating Shell (Amy Matthews) daughter of club owner Vic (Craig Berry.) Vic is variously a heavy drug user or violently opposed to them depending on the scene, which makes for a tricky relationship with resident rough trade and drug dealer Mile End Lee (Connor Brabyn - I see the project to clone Ryan Phillippe has been successful.) Straight Dave visibly drools any time he sees Lee, then is confused when people ask him if he's gay.