Little Richard: I Am Everything review – thrilling documentary about the rock’n’roll pioneer

‘A gay black sensation’: Little Richard and band at Wrigley Fields, Los Angeles, 2 September 1956. Alamy Photograph: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy

If Little Richard AKA Richard Wayne Penniman, was criminally underrated for much of his career, his legacy has burned bright since his death in May 2020. Last weekend, the BBC debuted James House’s Little Richard: King and Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll, a solid, feature-length UK/US co-production that’s now on iPlayer. Meanwhile, the Dee Rees exec-produced Little Richard: I Am Everything, which premiered at Sundance back in January, is in UK cinemas.

Unsurprisingly, there’s significant crossover between the docs in terms of archive footage and interviewees (Nile Rogers tells pretty much the same story in both – about David Bowie wanting to sound the way Little Richard looked). But the films also have distinctly different approaches, with director Lisa Cortés leaning further into the queer-theory aspects of Penniman’s ever-changing alter egos.