 a satellite network that reached and raked in millions) and a window onto their eventual fall from grace. This slickly staged piece cuts, with argumentative force but not enough serrated wit or charged emotion, to the chase of how the channel emerged and became the envy of more conservative ministers, who swooped after the couple's finances unravelled, and the law got involved – their nemesis being Jerry Fulwell, who wangled a take-over. That allows the thesis that the duo w){kind=link}
It isn’t a hell of a show in the wrong sense, but it’s surprisingly purgatorial at points, struggling to find a strong dramatic pulse
Elton John moves in mysterious but not wholly inexplicable ways. The star wasn’t present at the opening night of his new musical, about the troubled but cherished American televangelist Tammy Faye, fondly recalled when she died in 2007 as a stalwart for the gay community during the Aids crisis, but relatively unknown over here.
The 325-seat Almeida might seem a smallish pulpit from which to launch a work by one of the world’s biggest recording artists and a titan of musical theatre: The Lion King is the highest grossing Broadway musical, and Billy Elliot ranks among the finest British musicals. The talent working alongside John too, looks heaven-sent: the Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears has provided the lyrics, prolific playwright James Graham has put together the book, and ever-estimable Almeida boss Rupert Goold directs.
Caution is advisable with any new musical, though – and John’s most recent endeavour in Chicago, providing the score for The Devil Wears Prada, was excoriated in the summer. As things stand, Tammy Faye isn’t a hell of a show in the wrong sense, but it’s surprisingly purgatorial at points, struggling to find a strong dramatic pulse, the bland leading the bland so far as too many songs are concerned.
The recent film, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, delved more interestingly into the flaws of Faye and her husband, Jim Bakker, as it charted their progress from sweethearts to Christian puppeteers to something like a proto US Richard and Judy – TV both their salvation (‘Praise the Lord’ (PLT) a satellite network that reached and raked in millions) and a window onto their eventual fall from grace.