Elton John and Jake Shears' Tammy Faye Bakker Musical to Hit the West End in Fall 2022

As BroadwayWorld previously reported, James Graham is collaborating with music legend Elton John and Jake Shears of The Scissor Sisters on a musical take on the life of infamous TV evangelist, Tammy Faye Bakker.

According to Baz Bamigboye of The Daily Mail the musical is now set to open in autumn 2022 at the Almeida Theatre on London's West End. The production is set to be directed by Rupert Goold, who previously helmed a workshop of the show in 2020.

Tamara Faye was an American Christian singer, evangelist, author, talk show hostess, and television personality. She initially gained notice for her work with The PTL Club, a televangelist program that she co-founded with her husband Jim Bakker in 1974. They had hosted their own puppet show series for local programming in Minnesota in the early 1970s; Messner also had a career as a recording artist. In 1978, she and Bakker built Heritage USA, a Christian theme park.

Messner garnered significant publicity when Jim Bakker was indicted, convicted, and imprisoned on numerous counts of fraud and conspiracy in 1989, resulting in the dissolution of The PTL Club.

During her career Messner was noted for her eccentric and glamorous persona, as well as for her moral views that diverged from those of many mainstream Evangelists, particularly her acceptance of LGBT views and reaching out to HIV/AIDS patients at the height of the AIDS epidemic.