Tammy Faye A New Musical ★★★★
Almeida Theatre, London

A new musical where the score is by Elton John and the lyrics by Jake Shears from Scissor Sisters is undoubtedly going to have great tunes and camptastic lyrics. But it’s only when the opening scene presents Tammy Faye (Katie Brayben) with a proctologist’s finger up her butt that the audience realizes this is also going to be no-holes barred fun.

Tammy Faye was the surprise darling of the 1980s US televangelist movement. With her husband, Jim Bakker (Andrew Rannells) they began spreading the gospel to children via a puppet show. After scoring their own TV channel on a recently launched satellite network that was desperate for content, they developed a signature style of entertainment-based evangelism. It was all driven by Tammy Faye’s recognition that religion beamed directly into people’s homes could thrive on a new form of intimacy. This infuriated their competition, the right-wing conservative Christain ministries who were starting to flex their political muscles and helping to sweep Reagan and the Republican party to power. Those ministers resented her focus on love, and acceptance because she extended it to marginalized groups, including gays and people with AIDS. 

The appetite for religious programming proved to be a lucrative business model for the televangelist movement and with all the money sloshing around corruption and venality eventually tainted everyone involved. Jim Bakker was accused of affairs, homosexuality, tax evasion, and fraud. He ended up in jail and many of his fellow pastors had a similar downfall. Tammy Faye spent money like water and gained an addiction to pills, but throughout it all retained a connection with the disenfranchised that nobody else could replicate. When she was diagnosed with the cancer that eventually killed her it only added to the narrative of suffering and redemption that she swam in. 

The hypocrisy of religion, politics, and sexuality is a ripe topic for satire and director Rupert Goold runs at them hard. The swagger of the other pastors creates a swampy stew when mixed with the self-satisfaction of their ‘moral majority’ congregants. This is in contrast with the ordinary folk who sent their end-of-month savings to Jim and Tammy based on a promise of a more abundant life. 

The joyously irreverent delivery and the riotous embrace of the absurd is what makes the show a delight. It’s a cavorting romp, carried by some amazing vocal performances of which Brayben is the undisputed queen. Whether it is her heart-rending solos or her ability to lift the group numbers, she shines at every opportunity. Rannells brings his accomplished talent to a role that should have been unpalatable but is sustained by his air of flawed likeability. 

Set on a simple stage, built from a repetitive stack of TV screen-like boxes that reflect the 80s as the birth of the age of the image, Tammy Faye manages to capture a moment in history as well as the story of one woman. Elton John injects pop energy into the whole production while Shears helps you hear the essence of the story, that one woman’s empathy can unexpectedly survive anything.

Review by ANDREW HEBDEN

Queerguru Contributing Editor ANDREW HEBDEN is a MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES graduate spending his career between London, Beijing, and NYC as an expert in media and social trends. As part of the expanding minimalist FIRE movement, he recently returned to the UK and lives in Soho. He devotes as much time as possible to the movies, theatre, and the gym. His favorite thing is to try something (anything) new every day.