The audience are on their feet by the end of The Divine Ms Jayde, which feels less like spontaneous reaction than part of the show’s choreography. That’s not to detract from the potency of Jayde Adams’ third fringe outing, a musical comedy created and performed with the Jerry Springer: The Opera maestro Richard Thomas. But it’s also one of those shows – and Adams has one of those personae – designed with bums-from-seats vertical takeoff in mind. In comedic terms, it’s so-so. But Thomas’s music, Adams’ powerful voice and her spotlight-compelling personality still add up to emphatic entertainment.
You could see it coming after 2017’s Jayded, which laid the ghosts of her low self-esteem to rest, but this year Adams goes full diva. She is wheeled on stage under a flowery bower. She splays herself louchely across a grand piano. She emotes like a trouper – albeit for laughs – in a number demonstrating how to tearjerk on stage. (It’s all in the wrists, surprisingly.) Elsewhere, several songs (Whatever Happened to Baby Jayde?; Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was Younger) send up musical-theatre soul-searching without discarding sentimentality.
It’s a neat trick, which would be neater if the jokes had more edge. As it is, her routine about the Bristol accent (this is a very Bristolian show) echoes Bill Bailey, her lyrics raise more smiles than laughs and one song proffers an apology to her dad despite her having little, seemingly, to apologise for.
The stronger moments – in chat and song – are more about forthright personality than wit, as Adams questions Beyoncé’s feminism and celebrates plus-size bodies. She’s a star, no doubt about that – if more of light entertainment than comedy.
- At the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 27 August.
- Read all our Edinburgh festival reviews.
