Everybody’s Talking About Jamie
★★★★☆ Sparkling
Church Hill Theatre: Thur 16 – Sat 18 July 2026
Review by Thom Dibdin.
Find Your Light have a shimmering summer holiday production of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie up at the Church Hill Theatre this week, with a young cast who positively revel in the show.
The musical might be a bit more on-the-nose politically than when it was first staged almost a decade ago, as working class Sheffield lad, Jamie New, turns 16 and follows his dream to become a drag queen. But this is a production which gets all the potentially tricky elements just about right.
Rory Pentland as Jamie New. Pic: Find Your Light.
Having gone into rehearsals just ten days before first night, the 28-strong cast (and company behind them) get nearly everything else right too. There are a few distracted moments, but nothing to detract too much,
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is one of those large cast musicals which benefits from this kind of summer school production. Director Stephen Graham-Martin and choreographer/MD Charlotte Henshall ensure that everyone gets their turn in the spot, whether it is in the big classroom scenes or spilling out into the auditorium for moments of interpretive dance.
It is also a musical which depends for its success on some serious quality up top. Rory Pentland (who alternates with Olly Freeman-Ferguson) is a sassy, often elegant turn in the title role. Pentland has an effective singing voice. More importantly for the narrative, he gets both the camp confidence of Jamie’s up-front personality, and his gaucheness as he begins to understand the world around him better.
Isla Nisbet (alternating with Brook Dunbar) betrays a wealth of talent as Jamie’s mum, Margaret, bringing more complexity and depth to the role than has always been apparent in professional tours.
bedrock
The bedrock of the character is there in Tom MacRae’s book and lyrics, and Dan Gillespie Sells’ music. Nisbet brings it to the fore, finding a lot more than a simply supportive mum by showing how Margaret’s previous decisions colour of her relationship with Jamie. Nisbet’s solo moments are particularly memorable and, very often, tender.
Margaret’s best pal Ray has a welt of comedy to bounce off but is a less rounded character in the writing. Iris Simmonds suffers as a consequence. She has a belter of a voice, but over-uses arm-swinging and physicality as a way to a generate her character.
Iris Simmonds and Isla Nisbet. Pic: Find Your Light
The revelation of the whole production, however, is Lucymarie McEvoy as Jamie’s bestie, Pritti Pasha. Vocally, McEvoy has a rich expressiveness to her singing voice, while there is also a great naturalness to her acting as she helps drive the narrative of Jamie’s school life.
Such a natural approach to the performance is obvious throughout the company. Even before curtain up Jamie’s class are milling around waiting for their teacher, Miss Hedge. As a pre-curtain scene it slides effortlessly into the opening number and shows an intelligence to the direction.
Eve Morrison brings adequate presence to Miss Hedge as she controls her rowdy class; but has room for a more glacial demeanour, particularly in the climactic scene as she tries to deny Jamie entrance to the school prom. However, she finesses Hedge’s underlying inadequacies well and the role fits with the general positivity of the whole piece.
While the ensemble do the chaos of class well, the named characters – Dylan Hynd as the bully Dean, Esme Hobson and Lucy Kinnear as the scathing Bex and Becca, Lily Dalgliesh as Fatimah and Maddalena Di Emidio as the forthright Vicki – ensure there is a clarity, even when space on stage is tight.
Hynd has a properly scathing demeanour and there is more than a little sense of jeopardy in Dean’s homophobic bullying of Jamie. Fionn Cameron provides a second source of jeopardy as Jamie’s estranged Dad, something of a caricature who is evident as much by his absence as anything else.
authenticity
RobbieWilkins and Ruaridh Laidlaw fill out the boys in class well, delivering potty-mouthed lines and bragging innuendo with authenticity. Wilkins, Laidlaw and Cameron also double up as drag queens under the caustic eye of the redoubtable Loco Chanelle.
Jamie’s journey – from wanna-be star to stepping out in towering heels and bright red dress – demands more than feel-good family and peer-group support to work. That comes from Hugo, jaded drag star and owner of the Victor’s Secret – an emporium for man-size dresses and all things flamboyant.
Real life teenage drag queen Sam Carlin takes on Hugo with gusto and brings all the necessary pizzazz and flouncing waspishness to Hugo’s alter-ego Loco Chanelle – channelling his own alter ego Cherry West. While the drag scenes are undoubtedly a high point, bringing Hugo’s age down to 26 might get round young Carlin’s obvious lack of jaded grizzle, but doesn’t quite work in narrative terms.
As MD, Henshall uses piped, not live, music for the whole production. Given the time constraints this is sensible. Sound technician Chris does well to ensure that youthful voices are not, for the most part, swamped. Lighting designer Owen provides some nicely atmospheric washes of tone that significantly help the storytelling. However, the technical aspects of actually lighting the stage leaves a lot to be desired and too many times performers are literally unable to find their light.
There is no problem for this company finding their own light, however. It would be wonderful to see them with a couple of extra weeks’ rehearsal under their belts. But in terms of providing a great night out and getting to grips with the depths of their source material, this is a positive and authoritative production.
Running time: Two hours and 35 minutes (including one interval).
Church Hill Theatre, 33 Morningside Road, EH10 4DR.
Thur 16 – Sat 18 July 2026.
Evenings: 7.30pm; Sat mat: 2.30pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.
Find Your Light website: website: www.sjmcreative.com.
Instagram: @findyourlightscotland
Rory Pentland with Iris Simmonds and Isla Nisbet. Pic: Find Your Light.
ENDS
