The publicity describes this new musical as “a coming-of-age story with a twist”. The twist is kept under wraps for less than three minutes, until 16-year-old Jamie reveals in his careers class (albeit in a fantasy sequence) that his ambition is to be a drag queen.

Virtually everyone – his mother, her best friend, his own best friend, his new friend Hugo (alias Miss Loco Chanel) at the drag suppliers – is entirely supportive both of his gay sexuality and his frankly questionable taste in stiletto-heeled platform footwear. The same seems broadly to have been true of the real-life Jamie, subject of a 2011 TV documentary which inspired the show; and creators Dan Gillespie Sells (music), Tom MacRae (lyrics and book) and Jonathan Butterell (director and original concept) are clear that they weren’t interested in warming over just another coming-out story. The thing is, without opposition, where is the story? True, here we have an officious teacher... who caves in the face of a wave of pupil solidarity at the school prom; a solitary homophobic classmate... who turns out just to be insecure, awww, and ends up even dancing with Jamie; and the lad’s estranged reactionary father, who simply fades out of the story unmourned. Affirmation needs to affirm in the face of something reasonably weighty.

What carries the show through is that that affirmation is so very joyous and witty. Jamie, explaining his drag proclivities to best friend Pritti: “Remember when we were little and we used to play dress-up and I’d always be Carol Vorderman?” Life in 21st-century Sheffield means that there can still be a crisis when two girls turn up at the prom in identical sparkly hijabs. Jamie’s intention to make himself a living artwork cues a musical cousin of Cole Porter’s “You’re The Top”, which in this case includes the line “You’re a Duchamp urinal”. MacRae’s lyrics (big on triple rhyme) are sharper than they sometimes seem, and Gillespie Sells’ decade fronting pop/rock band The Feeling has given him a facility for bouncy, melodic tunes. Speaking of bounce, John McCrea is irrepressible as Jamie, and Mina Anwar steals all her scenes as mum’s mate Lee. This story won’t stop here.

Written for the Financial Times.