Tammy Faye review: a West End run seems preordained

Looking for a deep dive into the foibles beneath the fabulousness of TV evangelist Tammy Faye Bakker? Then you’ll have to look further – to books, documentaries, and the Jessica Chastain-starring film The Eyes of Tammy Faye – than the stage musical that is currently raising the roof off London’s Almeida Theatre.

Despite running for two hours and forty-five minutes including an interval, the show whisks us through the Tammy Faye story in a whirligig of campery, comedy, insanely colourful costumes and a much better than expected score by Sir Elton John (which we’ll get to shortly).

Her dependency on drugs is glossed over, as is any blame she might have taken in the collapse of her and husband Jim’s financial empire and the foreclosure of their Disneyland-style theme park. And claims that Jim had homosexual relationships are barely addressed, which is surprising when you have Elton and lyricist Jake Shears on the creative team.

But if Tammy Faye is a bit of a surface-skimmer, that surface is a magnificent one. The show celebrates Tammy’s luminance as a TV sensation who dared to piss off the Christian establishment by embracing the gays – quite literally in the case of HIV-positive pastor Steven Pieters.

As played with full-wattage charisma by Katie Brayben (ace in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, awesome here), this Tammy is a hoot to be around. She makes her entrance from under the stage, rising in a saintly white hospital gown not to meet God but her proctologist. When she explains she’s been bleeding from her backside, she joshes that the gay medic must know what that’s like in one of many hilarious one-liners in James Graham’s smart book.

Andrew Randells (The Book of Mormon) makes his UK stage debut as Jim and he too has charisma to spare as Jim and Tammy use cutesy puppets to spread their happy-clappy message, land their own TV channel and launch their Heritage USA complex. Jim is awkward in front of the cameras (Rannells is great with a fixed grin and fake laugh) but Tammy’s a natural so she becomes the face of their brand – an impossible-to-dislike, larger-than-life, goshdarnit superstar on a mission to put the fun back into faith.

Directed by Rupert Goold with pizazz to spare, the musical that bears her name is equally determined to give the audience a great time and praise be, it really delivers. Jake’s lyrics are poignant in the big numbers that Brayben sings the hell out of and side-splitting in songs like ‘He’s Inside Me’ (example: ‘He’s inside women, he’s inside men’). And Elton’s score, which combines gospel-tinged pop with rompy showtunes and power ballads, is as catchy as it is clever – which is a nice surprise considering his score for Aida was subpar and his musicalisation of The Devil Wears Prada this year stubbled in Chicago tryouts like a supermodel in wrong-sized shoes.

Who knows if Prada will ever make it to the UK but, with its run at the Almeida sold out, a Tammy Faye resurrection in the West End seems preordained. I for one am praying that it happens.

Rating: 4/5

Tammy Faye is at the Almeida Theatre, London, until 3 December. For more information visit almeida.co.uk and for great deals on tickets and shows click here.