As a child of 80s America, Jake Shears recalls the influence of Tammy Faye Bakker, an American evangelical talkshow host, on his own life. “When I was a small kid, growing up in a fairly Christian home, she was part of the culture, and she had a warmth and a way about her – not to mention a touch of camp that I responded to.”
Faye’s extraordinary rise and fall as one of the most famous televangelists in the US is the subject of the musical Tammy Faye, which is premiering at north London’s Almeida theatre. It is a star-stuffed production, featuring an entirely original score, with music by Elton John, and Shears – who became famous as a singer in the Scissor Sisters – writing the lyrics. What can we expect? “A rollicking hoot,” Shears promises. “The majority is uptempo and fun, sometimes funny. The ballads are goosebump-inducing and heartbreaking. It is unmistakably Elton.”
Known for her glamorous persona, Faye rose to fame as the co-host of the PTL (Praise the Lord) Club, which she founded and presented with her then-husband Jim Bakker from 1974 to 1989. It was a truly American phenomenon, with ministers preaching to the masses via TV and radio. At its height, the PTL Club was beamed into 13m American households. Faye and Bakker even built a Christian-themed amusement park, Heritage USA, in South Carolina in 1978 (it closed in 1989).
The lifespan of this latest Tammy Faye musical – there have been a host of previous productions in the US – stretches back almost a decade, when Shears recalls being pulled aside by John at the latter’s birthday party, to ask if he’d collaborate with him. Shears says the pair had loosely been discussing “some kind of Christian broadcasting musical” before then – ever since watching The Eyes of Tammy Faye (a 2000 documentary) together, which itself became the subject of the Jessica Chastain film of the same name released last year.
In 2016, James Graham was brought on board to write the script; his writing credits including Channel 4 film Brexit: The Uncivil War starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and Ink, another Almeida production, directed by Rupert Goold, who also directs Tammy Faye. After being recommended by a mutual friend, Graham describes one surreal situation where he found himself “in Elton’s car being driven to Windsor and just chatting to see if we connected”. The cast includes the Olivier award-winner Katie Brayben (who played the title role in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical) as Faye and Andrew Rannells from Girls and The Book of Mormon as Bakker.
Like Shears, Graham was bowled away by Elton’s songwriting chops: “Every now and again you hear a riff or a twinkling melody that takes you back to that 70s Elton origin music. I get shivers, the hairs stand up on my arm, because it really transports you and I think an audience is going to really find that thrilling.”
Faye and Bakker’s show received millions of dollars, donated by willing viewers, before the pair experienced a scandalous downfall precipitated by a rape allegation against Bakker and reports of him misusing ministry funds as hush money to cover up the accusation and to pay for the couple’s decadent lifestyle. In 1989, Bakker was imprisoned for fraud and conspiracy, spending nearly five years behind bars. Faye divorced him in 1992.
“It is about the queen of televangelism, essentially,” Graham says of the musical. “This strange and vivid world that reached its zenith in the 1980s, of faith on television and church on screen. Tammy Faye Bakker was an icon of that. But she and her husband went through a huge Shakespearean rise and fall in front of the world. In a way, their story is almost biblical in itself, one of fame and greed, and redemption.”
Tammy Faye became known for her empathy towards others, in particular for the LGBTQ+ community at the height of the HIV/Aids crisis, despite this diverging from the views of mainstream televangelists of the time, many of whom believed the epidemic was a punishment sent by God. Her backing for the gay community lasted until her death from colon cancer in 2007. “When we lost everything it was the gay people that came to my rescue and I will always love them for that,” she told American TV host Larry King in her final interview, days before her death.
Tammy Faye’s accepting nature in turn led to her becoming an LGBTQ+ icon, not least to Shears. “For a lot of gay boys growing up in Christian homes, most likely a lot stricter than mine, she was somebody in this particular world that we would actually want to hang out with,” he says. “We often have to reconcile the belief systems of our families and extended families with the realities of our own.”
For Brayben, acting the part of Tammy Faye has been a pleasure. “She’s a very ‘in the moment’ person, she sort of bubbles with joy, but also with empathy,” Brayben says. “I think it’s what I love about her, she’s just reactive in every moment. And that’s so lovely to play for an actor.”
In preparation for the role, Brayben found a PTL fan page on Facebook, where she devoured video recordings of Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker. “They were the first Kardashians,” she adds. “Before there was social media, their family was kind of out there for all to see … [Tammy Faye’s] energy is entirely unique.” Brayben says she hopes to convey Tammy Faye’s legacy to the audience, as one of “inclusivity and a non-judgmental, arms-open approach that came very naturally to her”.
With this production years in the making, did Covid-19 hinder the process? If anything, it helped, Graham says. “Elton was able to put in some studio time, and Jake was able to write, and I was able to focus on the script,” he says. He cites one particularly memorable Zoom call, mid-pandemic, where John debuted some material. “[It was] the absolute surreal joy for me of opening up my screen and having Elton play four brand new original songs, to me, Rupert and Jake, and knowing that we were the first four ever to hear these original Elton John songs … It was an absolute highlight of my writing career so far.”
Politically, the relevance of this musical remains clear today. Goold, for example, highlights the overturning of Roe v Wade earlier this year, which repealed the constitutional right to abortion in the US. “I think, looking at the origins of where faith can enter lawmaking, and when the boundary between separation of church and state becomes more blurred, which happened around that Reagan era, that felt very resonant to now,” he explains. “It is a different country, it’s not ours. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have resonances and potential implications internationally.”
Likewise, Graham says the musical “speaks to themes of divisions: cultural, and social divides within a nation.” For him, it explores how “Christian rights, as they entered politics, began to try to move the nation back to what it saw as its original founding values … and the dangers inherent in that when certain groups or individuals are excluded from that story.”
Ultimately, Graham hopes that this musical will bring people together. “In our story, we have a woman whose driving belief was in bridging those gaps, and in finding things that unite us rather than divide us,” he says. “I hope that is a relevant and moving message for the times.” Of course, he wants a dazzling show, too. “We want an audience to be able to access, in the spirit of Tammy Faye, a really inclusive, and big, bright, wide-eyed, vibrant world that just captivates you for two and a half hours, and moves you and makes you laugh.”
Tammy Faye is at the Almeida theatre, London, to 3 Decemberember.
