Tammy FayeAlmeida Theatre, London N1★★★★☆
A Single ManPark Theatre, London N4★★★☆☆
The Lavender Hill MobTouring★★★☆☆
Unusual sight: a theatre usher in tears, swaying along to the penultimate song of Tammy Faye, the watchable new Elton John musical. Ushers sit through numerous performances and you suspect they must become pretty hardened to a show’s merits. Yet as the excellent Katie Brayben opened her lungs for If You Came to See Me Cry, giving vent to the dying defiance of her character Tammy Faye Bakker, the usher was caught up in the moment.
Bakker, with her husband, Jim, was one of the more notorious televangelists of 1970/80s America. The era was rotten with them: Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts, Pat