My birthday was back in June, and I received a voucher from a gift website for dinner (with wine) and threatre from a selection of about six different shows. (Thank you Ann and Chris!) Because the early part of summer was really busy with work for me, I was not able to use the voucher then, so I booked it for early September. The voucher could only be used from Monday to Thursday, so I arranged it for after work on Thursday last week. Out of the shows listed, I was drawn toward "Everybody's Talking About Jamie", which is based on a true story about a 16-year old boy who strives for acceptance. Read below to learn more!
First up, we had the dinner right after work. I made my way to Glasshouse Street near Piccadilly Circus to the Prezzo just a couple of buildings down from Whole Foods. There was a choice of about five different restaurants that I could have selected, but I have not been to a Prezzo in a long time, so I opted for Prezzo. Prezzo serves Italian-style food. The voucher company's menu was a very slimmed-down version of the regular menu and gave us the option to choose either house red or white wine, a choice of one of four starters, a choice of one of a small selection of pizzas, pastas, or salads, and a choice of one of three desserts.
I opted for the arrabiatta pasta, and my guest has the spicy pizza. I actually preferred the pizza to the pasta, though, as the pasta was not at all spicy and fairly bland. The starters were better with garlic bread and breaded mozerella, which we shared. For dessert, the sticky toffee pudding was delicious, and it was served with an equally delicious scoop of vanilla ice cream. My guest just had a couple of scoops of ice cream.
After dinner, we walked to the theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue, opposite Chinatown. "Everybody's Talking About Jamie" is currently showing at the Apollo Theatre, and it is the story of a 16-year old school boy who has to overcome bullies at school and a difficult relationship with his father to become accepted for who he is and to fight his own battles. The show has colourful drag queens and wonderful music, and the actors and actresses were all very talented and great singers as well. I loved the title song, and the song by Jamie's school friend Pretti was also very good.
The sad reality is that this is based on a true story and was also a documentary, but it has a happy ending. The music and acting was very good, though there were a few times it was difficult to hear what the actors and actresses were saying and some of the punchlines got missed due to other music or noise or a microphone not working correctly for a few seconds. The story is a little slow-moving, but the music made up for it when it was sung. I would have liked the story to have been a little more fast-paced; I think that due to the nature of it being based on a real story, there's not really a climax of conflict or "the bad guy" resolution. There are the bullies and those who do not understand the title character at play, but they do not pose much of a real threat and and just treated as ignorant one-dimensional characters. The biggest villan is the title character himself, who doubts himself at times and makes his situation worse. I also would have liked a little more drag and colourful outfits. I think the set design could have made the end scene set in the disco-party atmosphere of the prom to add colour and interest instead of taking place outside the school building; I think more could have been done in the nightclub too. I am thinking glitz, glitter, and glamour here.
If you are planning to go to the theatre this autumn, I do recommend this one as it is funny and the songs are really good. The play has also won some awards, which also highlights it as one to see.
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