Northampton-born Everybody's Talking About Jamie lyricist speaks on shows soaring success ahead of town's opening night

Growing up in the village of Weedon Bec, a young Tom MacRae, who has since written the lyrics to songs in Everybody's Talking About Jamie, knew he always wanted to write a West End musical.

After getting a job as a runner on a Paul Abbott drama, he dipped his toe into theatre after his friend, who was playing Fiyero in Wicked, invited him into Helen Dallimore and Idina Menzel's dressing room on the night Idina was leaving the West End.

"There was always this amazing buzz and because I had always done television I had never been around this atmosphere before and I thought ‘I would love to do a stage musical’," Tom said.

"Flash forward 15 or 16 years, Helen Dallimore is playing Margaret the female lead in Jamie in the Austrailian tour, which I found out this week, so it's come full circle."

Tom headed to London at 18 years old to study anthropology but after a chance invitation to dinner in Soho following a Russell T Davies' book signing, Tom stayed in contact with the TV writer and later worked alongside Russell on Doctor Who.

Tom added: "He mentored me and he gave me notes on my first script when I wrote about my summer jobs I had when I was a student - it was kind of like a workplace comedy, I guess.

"I sold the script to the producer at the TV show I was working on.

"She saw I was writing something and she said, 'oh, can I read it', she optioned it off me and I got my agent and I signed with her through luck and that was the game changer.

"I kept on working, I kept on writing, knocking on doors and eventually I wore everyone down and got the job."

Despite working on Doctor Who where Tom helped to bring back the Cyberman, the former Campion School student's leap into theatre was a bigger jump.

After the Everybody's Talking About Jamie team got their first three-week gig in Sheffield's Crucible Theatre - where the shows muse, Jamie Campbell, grew up - there was uncertainty about the shows success and it was cut to a fortnights run.

The show soon proved this decision wrong.

"We opened the show and it just went crazy," Tom said.

"We sold out the whole theatre for the entire run. They hadn't done that for ten years. People were literally camping outside for tickets.

"Because people in London look out for shows happening in local theatre the show was doing so well and the word got to the West End and we had a five-star review in The Times.

"We were all at the after party and we suddenly realised it really worked as a show. We had the reviews coming in one-by-one it was like 'five stars in The Times, five stars in Time Out'...and then we all got very drunk."

In the first week of the South Yorkshire performance, a Sheffield-based film company offered Tom and his colleagues a movie deal and on the last night of their two-week stint they had an offer to take Jamie to the West End.

Now, Disney and Fox have thrown their weight behind the cinema deal and what would have been a low-budget £5 million watch will now be turned into a £30 million spectacular.

Tom said: "We had the movie deal anyway but the success of the West End meant that we could bring in Richard E Grant, Sarah Lancashire and Shobna Gulati who is in the show tonight.

"When the movie opens we will have four productions on around the world and hopefully more than that next year."

The musical, which is based on a BBC iPlayer documentary, sees 16-year-old Jamie New overcome prejudice, beat the bullies and step out of the darkness, into the spotlight as he falls in love with drag.

"Cross-dressing or drag can seem intimidating but if you know the person behind the make-up and you become invested in their story then it just becomes what we all want: to fit in and to be loved," Tom added.

"Northampton is still home, so to be able to bring the show back here is magical.

"I'm so looking forward to tonight and I'm hoping everyone in Northampton will love it, too."

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is still showing in the West End at the Apollo Theatre, is set to go on tour in Austrailia later this year and will make its cinema debut on October 21.

Tonight the show heads to Northampton's Derngate stage from Tuesday 10 to Saturday 14 March 2020, with performances at 7.30pm and matinees at 2.30pm on Wednesday and Saturday. Tickets – priced from £11* – can be booked by calling Box Office on 01604 624811 or online at www.royalandderngate.co.uk.