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[0:01] Dan Gillespie Sells: My name is Dan Gillespie Sells, and you're listening to Eleven, the Official Theatre Podcast.

[0:16] William J Connolly: Hello, welcome to Eleven, the official theatre podcast that brings the biggest stars and creatives together in one place to discuss life in the arts. Now he's the superstar music genius behind hit West End musical Everybody's Talking About Jamie, that's now added a big screen film credit to his name. With international success as the frontman to The Feeling, he turned his hand to developing this queer-focused story of the boy who wants to wear a dress to prom. But inside this humorous and often rather moving story is a message of authenticity and acceptance. Now with the West End production taking a small pause, set to return in 2022, a UK tour in full swing with international productions up on the marquee, including its American premiere set for LA in 2022, and a big blockbuster cast leading the official movie adaptation.

It's safe to say that his desires of telling the tale of a boy from Sheffield that wears high heels has been quite the success story. So let's find out how it all happened. As now here in this exclusive conversation, we discussed developing the original documentary of Jamie Campbell into a stage musical, including how the show almost remained a limited run outside of London, wanting to write a show that allows audiences to feel good and is a queer-focused tale, how Nimax leader Nika Burns became the godmother of the show, the challenges of putting a queer-focused story into a mainstream market, how the response to the material that he's created changes actually based on the location of the theatre it's performing in, and also some of the changes that did occur from that original Crucible Theatre production, including why this story will forever be a gift to those people of Sheffield, the journey he took on writing the signature song "He's My Boy" for the character of Mum Margaret, why he's tempted to feature in the show, and particularly which characters he'd like to tackle, of which one may surprise you quite a lot, and why he's happy to admit that Broadway is within his sights for this little British musical that wants to change the world.

That's right. It's music genius Dan Gillespie Sells here now on this, the next episode of Eleven, the official theatre podcast. To meet with current restrictions and to stop the possible spread of COVID-19, Dan and I connected for this conversation digitally. So please forgive any brief moments while we wait for the internet to catch up. Enjoy.

[2:34] William J Connolly: Well, this is all very exciting because he is the genius behind a certain British musical that's got us all talking about it and him. So let's do just that. Please help me welcome to this, the next episode of Eleven. It's Dan Gillespie Sells. Hi Dan.

[2:47] Dan Gillespie Sells: Hello, thank you for having me. I suppose I should just give a little bit of context for some people, probably like the three people in the world that don't know. Dan is of course the composer of Everybody's Talking About Jamie, and Jamie was one of the shows which, through the sort of reopening and unlocking of the UK, which I think unlocking is a great term to describe a country. After the year that I imagine you and the industry have had, was it quite emotional when you first got sort of got the opportunity to say, okay, we can actually go?

[3:10] Dan Gillespie Sells: It was emotional for all of us. It was emotional for particularly for the cast. I think more so than anyone else. The cast have been sitting on their hands for a year, desperately trying to find other bits of work they can do and scraping to get by for a whole, you know, kind of 15 months. You know, it was a really tough time for them. And also we had that awful false start in December when we, you know, we basically opened for four shows and then they shut us down again, and it was that was pretty brutal thing to go through. So, you know, for us it felt like, you know, obviously for the creatives and stuff like that we're, you know, we get to work and carry on working during lockdowns and stuff because we're writers, you know, but for I think for the performers I think it was such a big deal, you know, it was delight.

We were just so delighted to have them back, you know, because they're marvelous, they're magnificent. They spent their entire lives in education training to get onto the West End stage, you know, that's what they're built for, these people, you know, they love it. And to have that taken away from them, kind of like also at that kind of like exciting peak of their career or that, or at least that kind of, you know, that thing where they're just starting out, a lot of them it's their first time in the West End for a lot of our cast, they've just come out of school, you know, and we were giving them this chance, this big moment to be in the West End on the West End stage and then it got kind of taken away from them, you know, for a really long time. So for I think for it was really emotional for everyone.

[4:36] William J Connolly: Did the reopening almost feel like an opening night again? Did you sort of get that all this feels quite fresh, you know, quite strange? Was it like here we go again?

[4:43] Dan Gillespie Sells: Yeah, and also we got to kind of slightly reimagine the show. We got to get our hands on the show. We went in and did a lot of rehearsing, been left to our associates for a while because, and they are fantastic, but there's always something that we can bring when we come back ourselves as the original creators, and we can kind of get stuck in. And we haven't had a chance to do that because obviously the film had taken up all of our energy for the last, you know, a couple of cast changes. So it was nice for us to get back in and work with this new cast and just really give it that personal touch again.

[5:12] William J Connolly: Was there a possibility that the show may not return?

[5:12] Dan Gillespie Sells: Not as far as Nika was concerned. I think Nika was adamant that she was going to keep Jamie alive, you know. So trusted her throughout from the very beginning, and she's been a real kind of hero. She's been a real saviour to Jamie, you know, several times. I mean it's not just due to this. There's been times in which, you know, our little show, which has got a lot of cast, it's got a big band, and we're in a fairly small house in the West End. It's not like we are a big moneymaker for anyone. That's not the point of Jamie. Do you know what I mean? Jamie's always been one of those shows that people come to because of something in their hearts makes them want to be part of it, and that includes our cast and also everyone, everyone on the team, you know.

Don't think anyone came and joined Jamie to get rich. It's not one of those shows, you know, we're not a big Disney thing, you know, we're not big with the tourists, we're not big in any that kind of way. We're a funny little niche musical that happens to have survived amongst all these big names, you know, in the West End. And I've always felt like we're a bit of an underdog. And so Nika is one of the people that just believes in the underdog and she just works really hard to keep us going.

[6:18] Dan Gillespie Sells: Nika Burns, we should say, was one of the loudest voices that wanted to actually originally bring Jamie from where it started in Sheffield, which was I believe a two or three-week project, which very possibly could have been, you know, the end of that story, however brilliant. And she was one of the biggest voices, if I'm right, that brought it to the West End and wanted to say actually more people should see this show. If it wasn't for Nika, we would have done two weeks in Sheffield and that would have been it. She came and saw us and she was like, I want to bring you into the West End and I'm gonna find a theatre for you. And she did, and she was in a great position to be able to do that. She did that thing she does, she loves something and then she puts her role into it. Yeah, we've always been very grateful to Nika, she's the godmother of the show, you know.

[6:56] Dan Gillespie Sells: The response when I came to that opening night in Sheffield, again, going to a relatively, obviously it was a brand new show, but you know, so a small theatre like Sheffield Theatres, and I come from Sheffield, so I can say that because it's enormous there, but it's not the West End to go to a show like that and to be able to witness it and witness authenticity and to be able to get lost in this fantastic show. You think this, of course, does deserve a place in the West End, but the reality of that actually happening, unfortunately, is it's very slim. So have you noticed that the reaction of like excitement has sort of built and built so that when you came to London, people sort of went, well, of course this was going to happen? Or have you noticed that people have slowly grown to love it? I guess how has people's perspective of Jamie changed?

[7:33] Dan Gillespie Sells: I mean, it's hard to know what it feels like for people on the outside, you know. We're so in it, you know, we're so in the middle of it, we're so concerned with just making sure that the story survives all of these iterations. You know, our main job is to make sure that our Jamie, you know, that creation survives a transfer into the West End and survives a tour and survives, you know, all these different iterations, different versions of it in different territories, and then obviously into the movie, you know, our concentration has always been on that. But one thing I do notice is it does seem to make people feel good. And I don't, you know, that's not something we have very much control over.

We try and keep telling the same story in the same beautiful way that we possibly can to keep the spirit of it alive, and that's our job. I think, you know, the response that the show has got has been different in different places in different ways because different crowds are different and different audiences are different. They always seem to have responded to the joy of the show. Trying to get a kind of joy which is grounded in something into a show is the one thing that we always wanted to do. We wanted to make sure that it felt like obviously immensely joyful, because why would you have a musical that wasn't joyful? But you know, like also we wanted to make sure that it felt like it had its feet on the ground and it was rooted in something, and that you could believe these characters in the real world and that you didn't heighten it too much to make it feel like too presentational.

All of those things we had we were concerned about, making sure that people could really truly believe in these working-class characters. You know, Sheffield was very particular because it's set in Sheffield and it was made for the people of Sheffield, and Sheffield saw themselves reflected in that piece so much. We included so many details about what it is to be a Sheffielder, and you know, loads of gags which are still in the show but don't really work as gags in the West End about Sheffield places and about the Supertram, about Barson Cross, and you know, Meadow Hall, and you know, as soon as they heard anything that they recognized about Sheffield, the Sheffield audience were just delighted because it was speaking to them directly.

You know, for a piece that was originally really written for that community, it seemed to have translated really well into other communities and into the more kind of mainstream space. And I don't know how that happened. It just, I think it's just because take all those details away, and what you've got is a really simple story that people like to be part of and people connect with, even if they're watching it with subtitles in another country.

[10:02] Dan Gillespie Sells: I remember when we did the live cinema screening with our original cast quite early on, actually, for us to be able to do such a thing. I remember people saying they'd seen it in Mumbai or, you know, and it was kind of mad to think that this story somehow connected internationally, and that gave us a great confidence going into the movie that we didn't have to change too much. If we were just true to that little story and kept it the same, that we were hoping we were already seeing how international audiences seem to get it. Even if we kept it quite specific, you know.

[10:35] Dan Gillespie Sells: So that was an interesting part of the journey, I think. And I guess the reason why I was curious is because when things move from smaller places into the mainstream, so often the message can get lost, but I don't think that's applicable at all to Jamie.

[10:48] Dan Gillespie Sells: Yes. Maybe people make the mistake of feeling have to change it in some way, you know, to be part of the mainstream and not let it just cross over in its purest form. You know, we just, we made adjustments when we went into the West End, but we felt like there are improvements that we would have made if we'd had longer in Sheffield to do those improvements anyway. And you know, and some of the changes that are practical changes for the tour were actually just a chance to work on it a bit more and a chance to make a little improvements a bit more that we, you know, some of those changes ended up coming back into the West End. Even changes that we made during the process of the filming, they've kind of like tiny little tweaks have made their way back into the West End production, you know, like they all inform each other, but we're already kind of trying to be really responsible and respectful of the original story, you know, just because you know it's gonna be a big movie and because just because we know it's gonna go international.

[11:37] Dan Gillespie Sells: You know, there's there was no reason for us to change what Jamie is. I love the fact you described it as a big movie. I think that's probably an understatement. I think it's a huge, huge film. I mean, the excitement is like off the scale for it, and I think that's a testament not just to the excitement just around a movie musical, which of course at the moment is very popular, but doesn't happen all that often on this huge scale, but also to the stage show, it just shows how it's connected to people like you say around the world. So I know there are also productions elsewhere, I believe there's also a production in Asia. How did that translate? One in Seoul in South Korea. There was a production that happened last summer, and it's a shame that I wasn't able to go there.

You know, Korea, as everyone knows, didn't have a lockdown. Um, they just had some minor measures in that people in the theatre wore masks. During last summer, they put on a production that I believe went really well because they're bringing it back next year. Oh amazing. Um it was very strange because we couldn't go. We couldn't be there. We were we were locked down here in the UK. So we didn't get a chance to be involved in it. But what we did do is we saw it on videos and endless Instagrams and you know kind of on YouTube videos and clips and stuff um that got sent to us. And I was amazed they they you know it's not in English. So the translation all I can tell from the translation is it sounded great.

You know it it it bounced along and it had this rhythm to it that was fantastic. Their pitching was amazing their singing was really great. The kind of precision in in in the performances were were were extraordinary really so I was really into it. I loved the vocals they are such kind of brilliant singers and I don't know it just felt like it felt like how Jamie story didn't feel like it had kind of morphed into anything very different. It just we just couldn't understand the words but we knew what was being said and I I loved hearing my songs in different languages. That was just a thrill to me just to hear how it sat and somehow they managed to get the rhyme structure and the kind of rhythm and the bounce spot on.

I mean there weren't any things that made me think oh that pulled my ear in a weird way because of the different language. It was really musically done. So whoever did the translation I give them 10 out of 10 for the translation you know as far as the musicality I mean the lyrics might not make any sense now but musicality wise you know as a completely ignorant Englishman I thought it sounded amazing.

[13:55] Dan Gillespie Sells: That was actually going to be my next question was uh did you hear of any words that didn't quite translate. I don't know as far as the translation is concerned what happened because I don't know whether the meaning has been lost in any way. I don't care because I can't know and I'll never know. Musically, it just fit so well. Because also what I write is quite percussive. They're quite wordy and they're quite syncopated. My songs, you know, between me and Tom, we tried to fit in a kind of bounce into the lyric and into the into the music because it's pop music and it's particularly Jamie's songs, they've got a real kind of bounce to them. So I was worried that that might get lost, and it didn't at all.

It sounds fantastic to me. There are so many amazing shows that get um out of West End off West End, or even West End runs and they're fantastic, and you go along and you think, gosh, this has been created so beautifully, and the music and the wording is fantastic. But unfortunately, just due to logistics or whatever it might be, their time is very limited, and then you think, Oh, that was a great song. I remember that, you never think of it again. But when you get a show like Jamie that's now placed itself at the core of the West End that has cast albums, it slowly then starts to be sung in concerts and they become sort of staples of the West End. Do you remember the first time you heard some of the songs sung in that capacity, you know, outside of the show when you realized that the actual things that you'd created yourself were starting to sort of have a ripple effect and I guess become staples of theatre. You know, they are now part of the playlist you get on Spotify where it's like British theatre or you know, musical hits.

[15:20] Dan Gillespie Sells: The one time I noticed it was be it was a thick was someone sent me a copy of a French woman singing he's my boy in French in like a kitchen set somewhere like properly filmed. It was bizarre, it was really weird. I was like, What is this? And she's singing mon garçon, and it's like it's kind of magnificent and brilliant, and she's got a croaky French voice, and it's like a kind of slightly loose translation of Here's My Boy into French. Uh, and kind of magnificent, it's really amazing. If you haven't seen it, please have a look. It's one of my favourite videos online, is the the Monga song video. Uh, I love it. I mean, that was that again was like a real thrill. You know, it's it's when you when you write songs and you hear them being kind of pulled into weird shapes and done different versions of in school versions and and you see that bunch of kids doing it in a in a in a kind of it's in a revival or some kind of thing that they're decided to do.

It is kind of great. I mean it is it is one of those things that one of the big thrills of being a songwriter, you know, is realizing that that people want to interpret your your songs in whatever way. So I've always loved it and going back to the feeling days I've I've always really loved hearing covers you know I always think it's really fun.

[16:32] Dan Gillespie Sells: How are you when you watch the show itself and you think about because obviously you will know oh I remember where I was or how I got to the point of which that's the final finished product but do you are you able to relax and watch the show and feel completely comfortable with it or does your creative mind go, oh I I I want to change that or I'd like to tweak that but I know I can or I can't I guess how are you with actually you know sort of succumbing to the fact I think I sort of have a finished product now. Um no I never have a finished product. I mean that but that's the same with my albums as well you know if I'm working with the band or whatever I'm there's always a point in which there's a point in which you have to surrender it you know that's that's there's a there's a deadline you know or there's a press night.

You know there's a point in which you have to surrender your work but you never want to stop working on it. You know that that's the hard thing you know we we're not like kind of painters who have to learn when to finish their work. You know like a painter has to learn what what the last brush stroke is before they have to step away and go I'm finished you know but that's because painters have as long as they like. We don't. We never have enough time. We've always got, you know, there's always a deadline. There's always a or or we just carry on writing these things for years and you know for 10 years. That's the problem. There's there's so many elements when you think about costume, lighting design, choreography, scene work, script, lyric, music, and then and then underscoring and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, there's just so many elements in the musical that there is never enough time to make it perfect. You would be a hundred years and you would never make it quite perfect. There's always something that could be changed in order to kind of improve it. And I think that's fine. You know, like people that work in theatre often say it's like, you know, there's lots of cliches around it, but like things like you know, a show is never, you know, it's never finished. You just never finish a show, you just give it up. You just you have to you have to just hand it over. You have to just go, okay, okay, you take it, take it. You know, I think that that that'll always be the case when I watch a show. Sometimes when I when I go and watch Jamie, if I've got guests and stuff, I do attempt to watch it without trying to take notes.

[18:35] Dan Gillespie Sells: There's nothing I can do. It's it's just that's that's I'll never be able to watch my show really like a punter does. At least it shows you care, though. Do you know what I mean? It's not just like, oh, I did this project, I've cashed the check, I've delivered the good, see you later. It shows that you're constantly, you know, you do actually care about the fact that it does age very gracefully, you know, it doesn't suddenly become oh, that doesn't work now. You sort of watch it and you think, like, yeah, I mean, I I thought this is such a nerdy example, but like I can imagine even when Jamie went on tour and you were like, Well, we've logistically got a different scene change, you might need longer scene change music, so therefore you're gonna have to recreate.

So I suppose you can't completely withdraw from it, can you? I mean, I suppose there's a point in which you have to trust your associates, you know, and that's that's one thing which you have to learn how to do, you know, and and don't be such a control freak, you know, it's a point in which one's control freakness has to take a back seat, but we're but we're all we're artists, so we're all control freaks. I mean, that's that's kind of we have to just go, that's what we are, that's what I am, but you know, so I'll be there and I will be making notes and I will be tweaking it if I possibly can, to the point which it's like people are like Dan, go away, you know, let us do our work. You have to let people do their work, and there's a point in which I have to just go, no, let them do the work.

And then I get dragged off because I've got another feeling album and I've got another another show to write, or or work on the film, or for whatever reason, there's there's things that drag me away. So thank goodness for those. Because if it wasn't for those, then I would be driving, be haunting that theatre like a ghost, you know.

[19:56] Dan Gillespie Sells: Will you indulge me just a little bit and talk about uh very briefly just the creation process of that amazing song, He's my boy? Because I know that you've been asked, you know, how do you write a song like that a million times? But it's just it's phenomenal, and I just think it's an absolute piece of perfection. And I guess do you remember how you slowly started to carve it to bring it together and perhaps what the moment was like when you went, I think we've got it. It was very quick, that song. Actually, we went to France. Um, me, Jonathan, and Tom decided we needed to do a bit of intensive kind of work. So we hired a cottage for a week in France, really in the middle of nowhere, just so that we could focus and have no distractions.

And I think like the first working day, we were like, What's Margaret's big song gonna be? You know, and there was always this line from the documentary where she just goes, What am I gonna do? He's my boy, and so we'd pick that out as like there's a hook in my head. I was like, Okay, how am I gonna get into these characters? Maybe I should imagine what the character's music that they would listen to would be, pick whoever kind of imagine imagine their favorite artists, and then put them into that voice. That was my way in, if you know what I mean. And I decided quite early on that I didn't really want there to be a kind of uh specific musical kind of direction for the thing, other than it being pop and it being each character sings based on the music that they that speaks to them.

So I had this idea that Margaret was probably a Dusty Springfield fan because there was something soulful and also some something slightly kind of a beautiful kind of faded glamour to Dusty Springfield or something. I don't know. I felt like there was soul and there was poignancy in in Dusty's voice that that would speak to Margaret. I then started writing in a kind of six eight rhythm because I thought that was a kind of classic kind of Motown y kind of vibe. And then I had a I had a song called Spare Me on my second album with the feeling I think which had this feel which I liked, so I kind of like pinched a bit of that the feel of the of the eights on the piano and the and the feel of the changes on the chords, a kind of descending line that we had in that song.

So I kind of pinched that and then figured out where the he's my boy was gonna land. I came up with the line believe me, he don't make it easy because it went really nice with the melody, and then uh the rest of it was just gaps. And Tom had written this stream of consciousness for Margaret. So, okay, where are we? What is she gonna say? What is she feeling? And what would she say if she was just talking to herself, and then wrote that. She he wrote that down for us, and then kind of picked out lines, and that that's when I I basically wrote, He's my boy, a dum dum dum dum, he's my boy, a dum dum dun dum, he's my boy, believe me, he don't make it easy, and then I was like dad, he's my boy, he's my boy, and then Tom filled in all the gaps.

[22:45] Dan Gillespie Sells: It was brilliant because he filled in the gaps and got it so bang on and so amazing straight away, which wasn't always the case because sometimes there was quite a lot of back and forth, particularly I think with Jamie's songs where we really worked in order to make sure that it sounded like pop in his mouth, if you know what I mean. Like, you had to say everything that he needed to say, but it needed to flow and bounce like pop lyrics, and that took a little while to get those right. But he's my boy, just Tom just did an extraordinary job straight away. All of those inter rhymes that he did and all of that stuff, it was just magnificent and said exactly everything we needed it to say really straight away.

So that was a quick song to write in a way, and then there was a bit of massaging it into shape, and is it too long? I think we had one extra verse and it was really long, so we cut a verse, thank goodness. And it was originally the placement of it was an interesting thing because it was originally in act one, okay? And then we realized what a big song it was, we moved it to act two, and that's what gave us our dénouement with the kind of argument between Jamie and Margaret really came about because we wanted to create heat for that song.

[22:45] Dan Gillespie Sells: You know, at some point we needed to understand Margaret, and we thought that we had to understand Margaret in act one, and so "He's My Boy" would be after the chat with dad, I think in act one where "Met Myself Again" is now. I think we were gonna have "He's My Boy" there, I think I believe, and then we realized actually we need to wait until act two before we nail that song because otherwise where can you go? Do you think a touch of the fantastic placement where it is in the show now is because you maybe would think that Jamie would sing a big belty ballad like that, but actually you take it from the heart of the show, which is, as you said before, is the mum.

[24:28] Dan Gillespie Sells: Yes, because I think we do that quite a lot in the show. You know, Tom was I was working with Tom yesterday on something, and he just said that he was watching Tony. He'd only just thought this recently, but there's a bit where after they get back together and they kind of reunite after that fight, and they're about to sing "My Man, Your Boy," which is in many ways a kind of reprise of "He's My Boy." Um, so they're sitting on that little table, and Margaret goes, "I don't care if you go to the prom wearing nothing at all, as long as you go as you, because whatever you are, you're always beautiful." The music underscores that little bit, "Whatever you are, you're always beautiful," and you're just expecting her to sing, and that's when Jamie sings. Jamie goes, "Beauty is the place," and he actually ends up holding her up just at the point where you think that she's gonna be holding him up.

[25:16] Dan Gillespie Sells: And I think that sometimes those little twists are something that we naturally do just to kind of take the form and play with it and do slightly the unexpected and do the thing that actually emotionally sometimes just happens when you think it's gonna go one way and it goes another way, and sometimes that's quite so. I think, yeah, I think giving Margaret the big song was inevitable. And I think Margaret's character gives it what you were saying at the very beginning of our conversation around, you know, the heart and just the simple sense of people being able to connect to it but also having fun because people then think, "Well, yeah, she's trying to do best by her son, but she's also trying to learn and understand herself."

[25:55] Dan Gillespie Sells: And so often in musicals, we don't really give characters the opportunity to learn per se. We just say, "Well, they are either yes or no, or they like it at the start and they don't." And I think a big part of her fear as well is she wants to learn, she's happy to learn, she's happy to accept a son, but she's also quite scared that he's just gonna grow up and he's no longer gonna be there, and it's just gonna be her against the world. And I think that's a really nice, pretty unheard of sort of point of view, which is I'm a mum, my son's gonna go off into the world, and I'm not sure what to do. And I like songs to be part of a self-realization moment for a character.

[26:28] Dan Gillespie Sells: Sometimes when a song is sung at you as an audience and you're like, "Okay, why am I being sung at here?" Is that this is just imparting information? When I think it's nicer for the character, the song to represent a thought that is happening inside the character's head that's a bit complex. "Wall in My Head" is an example of exactly that. He's left on his own, and he's kind of, he's going, "Why do I feel weird about walking out in these shoes? What is it?" And then he's kind of realizing it's something his dad said to him when he was a kid, and that's made him feel weird and made him feel something has gone in that's kind of stuck that's creating a kind of block for him inside.

[27:02] Dan Gillespie Sells: So he's kind of like processing at the same time as singing, and I quite like that because it gives much more purpose to the song rather than the song going, "I'm a song, and I'm gonna tell you this." You know, it feels like the song is teaching our character something, and the character is just expressing that through this song, and it feels like a different kind of purpose for a song for me. And I find that easier to write, you know, he realizes that part of the problem is him, yeah. You know, that a wall in his head is something he helps build himself, and so he kind of realizes that as the song goes along.

[27:31] Dan Gillespie Sells: And by the end of the song, we've got to a different place than we were at the beginning of the song, but we haven't had to make it a duet or include everyone else or do any kind of business during the song, other than emotional business, you know.

[27:44] William J Connolly: I think this may be a question for your collaborator, but as said during the first song in the show, "What's wrong with being 32?" Because I'm 30 and I'm getting worried.

[27:55] Dan Gillespie Sells: Oh, listen, listen, we were all way past 32 when we wrote that. We wrote that like when Tom wrote that line, it was like, "Okay, we were all way past 32." This is hilarious, but it's so what you say when you're 16. I love it. When you're old, like 32. It's so funny. I think, you know, just to touch on, you know, why does it work? I think again, add in everything we've discussed, plus the fact it's funny, you know, people are supposed to laugh. It's not supposed to be just misery all the time.

[28:19] Dan Gillespie Sells: Well, also, that's what makes it feel real. I mean, Tom is a very funny writer. Tom is just naturally a funny, funny writer. You know, he knows how to land a joke anywhere. And actually, to a certain degree, it was like cutting jokes was always painful, but we had to cut jokes, otherwise the whole thing was gonna be so funny that it was like we were gonna keep people in the theater for about five hours trying to squeeze the songs in and everything else and all the jokes that Tom wrote. If you don't have humor, then you don't understand these characters. Like, I don't believe in characters that don't have humor, especially if they're characters that are going through something difficult.

[28:54] Dan Gillespie Sells: For me, it's part of authenticity, it's part of what makes it feel real is the fact that these characters are funny. Everyone I know who's been through some really tough times, genuinely tough times, they're really funny. There's a coping mechanism in humor that I think is totally natural and totally human. And if you take that away, it makes the show less believable. I think also to say so. Humor is a great way to let people in and make them feel comfortable, and also as an audience to make them feel like, "I get these people and I like these people, and I'm gonna go with them because they're funny," and funny is part of showing how your empathy is there for them. And it doesn't surprise me that musicals and comedies are, you know, musical comedy is a thing; they go hand in hand.

[29:35] Dan Gillespie Sells: How much convincing did you and the creative team take or need to be able to say we should, you know, try and launch a movie version of this? Um, no, I think Warp Films are based in Sheffield, and the team from Warp came and saw it straight away. One of the people that worked at Warp Films, one of their associate producers, had seen the show very early on and then bought the entire office down to see the show in that little two-week window that we had. And you know, thank goodness Warp Films had an office in Sheffield. They're based, you know, they are from Sheffield, they have a London office, they're a big company and they're very successful. They did "This Is England" and all kinds of amazing movies, but they happened to be Sheffield people, so they came and saw it and approached us very early on.

[30:21] Dan Gillespie Sells: I mean, literally very, very early before we gone into the West End, when we were just a little two-week run in a local theatre. That's when Warp Films came on board. And actually, because it was them, we were like, "Okay, we're gonna do this." And we would have done it with them on a shoestring. We would have done it with them regardless, you know, even if we'd have had to shoot it with handhelds, you know, and find some way of making it work. We would have shot it with them because we loved Warp Films. We were just delighted to be working with such a cool production company, you know, somebody who had done something so, you know, they're known for like "Tyrannosaur," and the idea of them doing a musical was nuts as well. It was like Warp Films are doing a musical. I mean, that's great, you know, they're so cool and edgy and brilliant. And I was thinking that it's like that's an amazing thing to be part of.

[31:03] Dan Gillespie Sells: So we were on board straight away, and we knew they'd do a lovely job of it because they understood that community, they understood that particular Parsons Cross and that working-class community, they knew it, they were from there, and we knew that they would do a great job in upholding the jaminess that we needed to uphold and not turn it into some kind of shiny Hollywoodized kind of thing. You know, we didn't want it to feel like it wasn't a Sheffield film. And so they were on board from the very beginning. It was only when we were in the West End and obviously conversations they had with other people, more and more interest came in as we were starting thinking about production, you know, before we knew it.

Film4 came on board quite early on, very early on, and then, you know, American production companies and that came on board and New Regency came on board and, you know, kind of basically sorted out the rest of the financing, and we went from a tiny little film to a much bigger film.

[31:57] Dan Gillespie Sells: Warp were there the whole way from the very beginning, and I think that everyone wanted to maintain its kind of authenticity through that even though the budgets went up. In many ways, it was always going to be an indie movie musical. This is very much a spoiler-free zone, so I don't want to give too much away in terms of what people can expect from the movie, but just judging from the trailer, it feels like there's a lot of the fun and the joy that we get from what makes the stage show so fantastic, but it does feel like it stands alone by itself for anybody that hasn't seen the musical. They can go in there with an open mind, you know, for the first time and get to really dive into that. Was that the plan for you? And I guess how was it when someone said, "Okay, day one, we're gonna have to now translate this to the big screen?"

[32:09] Dan Gillespie Sells: Luckily, Tom is a screenwriter, so Tom came from writing for screen into writing our musical. You know, Jamie is his first musical theatre thing. Right for him, going back into writing for screen was quite an easy process. For me, I'd never worked in movies before. I'd never done a soundtrack before. I'd done like a little bit of work on a TV show called "Beautiful People." Yes. But I'd never done any like anything in the world of like movies. I knew that there would be a lot of work to do with the orchestrations and things to bolster it up, but I knew that I had the songs. I knew the songs were there and they were solid. And you know, there were points in which we were like, "Are we gonna keep all the same songs?" And as the script evolved, we realized that actually, particularly with Hugo, there was a moment where we could tell his backstory in a more literal way, something which we weren't able to do on stage.

[33:29] Dan Gillespie Sells: And so there's a new song for Hugo, which is an actual flashback to young, young Loco out and about in London, and we get to see a literal, literally see that world, which is in some ways more powerful because it puts stakes on the idea of what drag really is. Jamie, through this song, gets to see that drag was around activism and was around HIV and was around quite deep things that were happening in the 80s and 90s that actually he needs to take that on board when he steps into drag. It's not just dressing up, it's not just a TV show, you know, and it's not even just self-expression. What it is, is part of a history which runs deeper than just the surface things.

[34:13] Dan Gillespie Sells: And I think that's really important in our film. That's inherent in what Hugo says in our show, but to actually see Jamie's response to this song and this moment is really important. So that there's things that we can achieve in the film that we would never have been able to achieve in the show, and that make it kind of like more of a cinematic experience and a theatrical experience. They are different forms, and you have to adapt to those different forms and also take opportunities like that that you can. Another example is in "He's My Boy," you know, when we do "He's My Boy," we're on Margaret, we're watching Margaret on stage singing this incredible song as a live performance. In our film, we actually get to cut away to see what Jamie's doing before he gets in trouble.

So we actually go and watch Jamie getting drunk and going into the, you know, he ends up in a football match and dramatic things happen. But you know, this all happens during "He's My Boy," and there's an efficiency in that storytelling that we can't do on stage and that we wouldn't want to do on stage. Because actually, when it's on stage, we want to see Melissa or whoever is up on stage singing their heart out and doing an amazing, wonderful solo performance as the mother that absolutely tears everyone's hearts out. But in the movie, you know, there's more stuff, there's more stuff going on because that's the nature of movies. And just to be on one shot of a woman singing in the cinema isn't quite the same experience.

So we have these cutaways that are really powerful and really add to the song. Lots of different little tweaks and things like that that make it different. We also get to see Jamie's actual performance, the drag show at Legs 11, which in the musical we don't see it. We hear about it through the song "Everybody's Talking About Jamie." We kind of hear about it as an exaggerated form of what happened the night before. And all we know is he did a great job. You know, he showed the bullies shouting "Mingra" at him wasn't gonna stop him. He's just gonna go for it. In the movie, we actually see that performance. Are there any moments that have been created or made specifically for the film that you've been tempted or thought about putting into the stage? So or do you think they only fit within the movie?

[36:05] Dan Gillespie Sells: There are, but it's tricky because you don't want to unpick something which works without like a trial period in front of like, you know, you have to go into previews again, really, to test out any big changes and major changes, and our show just works so well as it is that we wouldn't want to go and kind of retrofit it with new ideas, though it's very tempting. There are tiny, tiny, tiny tweaks that get put in every now and then. Our show will never be one of those shows that is exactly static and stays the same. People come back years later, and they will always see tiny little details that we shift and change, little jokes that change here and there, even if it's just like that punchline would be better now if we changed a couple of words and we updated a character or something.

We always do that with our show because we want to feel like it's happening now, which is why when we reopened we did this kind of COVID edition. So the kids are wearing masks in the corridors and also there's lots of jokes around that. And there's jokes around social distancing, but only enough so that you feel like it's relevant and it's happening now, not so much to keep reminding people, you know. Nobody wants to be reminded of a pandemic. You do have a secret weapon in the film as well, but it's not really too much of a secret because she's an absolute national treasure, and that is Sarah Lancashire. Can you find words to describe the performance that she delivers? Because even judging by the trailer, you watch it, and you think this is historic, iconic, and everything you could ever describe it as.

[37:25] Dan Gillespie Sells: We've had her in the back of our heads from the very beginning as being, wouldn't she be magnificent as Margaret? Because you know, she's a northern woman and she carries a certain vulnerability and strength all at the same time. You know, she's got lots of layers to her as an actor and lots of complexity to her as a performer generally, and she can sing. I mean, that was the other thing that we were like, wow, she's done the West End before. And it's been a long time, so it was a bit of convincing, but to get her back onto the, you know, behind a microphone in this case. We realized that we wanted to record some of it on set, certainly bits of the song that we knew were gonna sound we knew we needed to do on set, we needed to record it.

So I played piano while she sang, particularly the introduction to the song, the way in and the way out of the song. We knew we're gonna have to be performed live as opposed to pre-recorded. We did do the whole song live on set in the end. Um, and it was quite an experience to work with her. She's really, really very brilliant. It's so funny when the casting came out for the movie and it said that Sarah was going to be playing the mum, because I remember taking my mum to see Jamie, and my mum is a huge Sarah Lancashire fan anyway. So I always knew she was going to say this. But she said, wouldn't it be amazing if Sarah Lancashire played that part? I don't know if she can sing, of which the musical theatre geek in me went, "Betty Blue Eyes," we'll play it when we get home.

And it happened. And I said, Mum, look, you manifested that. That's all on you. Yes. It was great. We were so happy when she said to do it, you know. We were so delighted. We were just like, yeah, this is a dream.

[39:00] Dan Gillespie Sells: With the musical, of course, there's the cast albums, and there was, of course, like the pre-West End cast album as well, where we got the opportunity to hear you sing lots of songs, and there's of course the movie, and it's gone all around the world. So you're sort of immersed now in the world of musical theatre. I know that you're a big sort of fan of music theatre anyway, but has it tempted you? And you did hint at in a second, and I'm not expecting details, but has it tempted you to consider writing other things?

[39:23] Dan Gillespie Sells: Um, yes, and I have been writing other things, you know, lots of and lots of other things actually. I still write pop music and I still write, you know, I'm doing another album with the band. I enjoyed working in film and I enjoyed working for stage, so I'm doing both. I'm writing, developing new musical projects for both film, for well, actually, film, television, and stage, and they're all in various stages of development, really. And there's a bit of a backlog at the moment because obviously lots of shows that were ready to go in are gonna be going in, you know, eventually, but we're waiting, and rightly so. A lot of producers and theaters are honoring the scheduling that happened that was supposed to be for 2020, and some of them aren't going in now to 2022 to find space for a new piece is actually quite difficult.

We're in a bit of a line for waiting for theatre space for certain projects. So there's a few things, yeah, a few things in very, like I say, various stages of development. So we just have to be patient and get them out there when we can.

[40:22] Dan Gillespie Sells: Because there's been so many different versions of music from bands put into stage shows and work so brilliantly, like that's very much not a negative, it's a huge positive. Have you ever been tempted to do that with some of the music from the band?

[40:35] Dan Gillespie Sells: Um, not really. I mean, we did talk about doing a kind of film version of our story at some point, only because we have a really mad, mad backstory. The feeling, the way it came about and all the various iterations of the feeling and how we ended up doing 10 shows a week in the French Alps and then ended up getting a record deal off the back of this. And you know, we have our own weird story, which is interesting in its own right. I don't know how interesting it is for an audience, but you know, there's always a chance of doing that. But I've never really thought about kind of like doing a kind of jukebox with Feeling songs. I'm not sure it's quite sure it's quite oh hey never you never know, but maybe maybe maybe someone else should take that on. I should just continue writing new stuff.

[41:17] Dan Gillespie Sells: Well, your fans would certainly be up for it because they adore you and I know that they would love it. Have you ever been, is the word tempted? I don't know. Have you ever, yeah, let's go with tempted. Have you ever been tempted to go into Jamie? Like, could we see Dan do Loco Chanel? Perhaps?

[41:29] Dan Gillespie Sells: I'd love to. I'd absolutely love to. I'm terrified of the idea and the prospect of it. I've never acted on stage before, and I'm not an actor. That's something to be thought of, isn't it? You know, I mean, obviously, I'd love to play Jamie, but I think I might be getting a little long in the tooth for that. Let me think, who else could I play? I think I make a good Ray. I could play anyone, I could play anyone. I've got range, darling. Um, truth is, yeah, I've Hugo's the only part I could ever play. And I used to think that I was too young to play Hugo because Hugo's a kind of 80s gay. He's a kind of 80s, 90s kind of like, you know, that's Hugo's generation. But I am getting to the point where I think in a couple of years I could probably get away with playing Hugo.

And I know that singing it wouldn't be a problem, you know, acting is a whole different ball game, and I wouldn't want to discredit those people who spent years in drama school learning how to do that as a craft and just throw myself into it. So if I was going to do it, I'd need some acting lessons and a bit of help.

[42:24] Dan Gillespie Sells: Is it the acting or is it the heels? The heels are not a problem. We've spoken about Jamie going to so many different places in iterations and it, you know, I've said it a thousand times, I will keep saying it a thousand times, it just proves how incredibly well put together and successful it is. And one thing that is I believe still happening in the future is the fact that American audiences will get the opportunity to be introduced to the show. Is that your plan to go to Broadway? Is this the start of the journey?

[42:46] Dan Gillespie Sells: Um, it's interesting, you know, Broadway's there's a lot of talk about Broadway there always was, you know, from the being Broadway, Broadway, Broadway. Obviously we'd love this show to go anywhere. Yeah, and if a show goes to Broadway it becomes kind of world famous, you know, then that helps you get to other places. But actually, our show's been going all over the world anyway and I would love it to go to Broadway obviously, but no more than I would love it to go to anywhere else in the world because I don't think you should say oh any town deserves our show more than any other town, you know. I'm very proud of our tour, I'm very proud of it going to Los Angeles in January, so you know, we are going to be doing a Californian production that's going to be going over in January 2022 and then we'll see where it goes from there if there's demand for it to go further afield then that's great.

So we're, you know, I'm open to the idea of us telling our story anywhere in the world because there are little Jamies out there in every town and every place. And one thing that makes me feel so delighted about the movie is that it's going to be released in 240 territories globally. And that means that our little story goes out there and hopefully for some people they'll find it inspiring, and for some people they'll find it enlightening, and for some people it just brings them, feels them a little bit closer to the centre of the world when they actually felt quite on the outside of the world before. And I think sometimes, you know, mainstream movies can do that. They can go, you know what?

I felt like I was just on the edge. I was on the outside, and I realize I'm not so on the outside because this big movie has happened, and it's brought me somewhere closer to the middle of society, you know, and makes me feel a little bit more like seen and heard. And so I think, you know, that that's what's exciting about the movie.

[44:38] William J Connolly: Well, you've been very calm with your time today, so thank you so much. And I should say for sort of the hundredth time again, like good luck with the movie. Not that you need it because I think it's going to be a huge, huge success. The stage show is going to continue just to go all over the world, and I very much believe that that's certainly within the sort of the trajectory and future of it. And I guess my final question to you, and probably the most important question is are we now allowed to officially say that everybody really is talking about Jamie?

[45:03] Dan Gillespie Sells: We're getting there.

[45:08] William J Connolly: You've been listening to Eleven, the official theatre podcast. Find out more about Eleven at elevenpodcast.com or via Broadway Podcast Network.