Jamie Campbell came out at 14, wore a dress to his school dance and dreamed of being a drag star. Throughout it all, he was supported by his mother. Now, their lives are the subject of a musical

Jamie Campbell had never thought of himself as a trailblazer, but, as he turned up for his school prom, aged 16, in a gorgeous frock, high heels and with a flowing blond wig – not knowing if he would be ridiculed by the schoolmates who had bullied him for being gay or, worse, turned away by his teachers – he was just that.

He knew there might be trouble. His school, having got wind of his plan, had told him he could not attend the prom in a dress. He had heard that a parent had described him as “disgusting”. He had had many homophobic insults spat at him over the years, but he had learned to bat them away. “I used to say: ‘Well, I am gay and I’m comfortable with that, so what’s your point?’” Yet the word disgusting got to him. “I thought it was the worst thing anyone could call me,” he says, wincing at the memory.

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“I got straight on the phone to the school when I heard that,” says his mother, Margaret Campbell, 52, whom Jamie describes as his “rock”. “It isn’t disgusting. And I said to them, if a girl wanted to go to the prom in a suit, they wouldn’t ban her, so why a lad in a frock?”

Jamie was ready to back down, but Margaret, knowing how much it meant to him, persuaded him to go through with his plan. “I said to him that he had wanted this for so long and had prepared himself for any negativity. Why backtrack now?”

“I needed that push and it didn’t take much to persuade me,” Jamie says, laughing.

Clearly, Jamie, now 22, is a remarkable young man, because, a year before, he had contacted Firecracker Films, the team behind Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, about his plan. They followed him in Toronto, a former mining village near Bishop Auckland, as he prepared for his big night at the end of his GCSEs. The resulting film, Jamie: Drag Queen at 16, was shown on BBC3 in 2011. It told his prom story, but also revealed Jamie’s ambition to be a drag star in Las Vegas.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jamie Campbell outside the Apollo, where Everybody’s Talking About Jamie opens on 6 November.

Talking about the experience now, Jamie says: “People can’t believe that I contacted a film crew at such a young age – I can’t believe it now – but I knew there would be opposition and I thought it might be safer if there was a film crew following me around.”

And now Jamie’s story – of being different, of perseverance in the face of prejudice and of a mother’s unquestioning love for her son – has been turned into a West End musical; Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, which opens next week. The show – created and directed by Jonathan Butterell, with music by the Feeling frontman Dan Gillespie Sells and lyrics by Tom MacRae – was inspired by the documentary.

Jamie had always liked “girl’s” clothes. “Princess dresses were always more appealing to me than a pirate’s outfit,” he says. “Most people in Toronto say their first memory of me is running around in a tutu or fairy wings. When I was very young, most people just saw it as playing, but I began to hide it when I went to secondary school. I never thought it was wrong, but by then I knew other people did.”

Margaret adds: “I don’t think he ever thought: ‘I’m wearing girls’ clothes.’ The attraction was that the clothes flowed and he could spin round and look fabulous.” Her mother, May, had a curtain shop; Jamie would take old samples, which the two women would fashion into gowns for him. “Very Scarlett O’Hara!” he jokes.

“He would dance around the shop in them, or his girlfriends would come round and they would put on little plays for us,” Margaret recalls. She and May later helped Jamie create his drag persona, Fifi La True – named, he says, “because I have to be true to myself” and “when I’m dressed as her I feel sexy and beautiful and fierce”.

Margaret never discouraged Jamie’s dress habits, despite knowing that not everybody – including his rugby-playing father – would react positively. “I always thought Jamie was going to be gay so would, sadly, get some stick anyway,” she says. “But no one who knew about the dresses – my family and friends – had any problem with it. I just tried to bring up Jamie to believe that if it made him happy, it didn’t matter what anybody else said.”

Jamie also put on Margaret’s lipstick, but she would tell him to take it off before his dad came home. After his parents’ marriage broke up when Jamie was seven, life at home became easier. The two men are still estranged.

When Jamie “officially” came out at 14, he thought it would be easier to tell his mum he was bisexual. “I would have been more surprised if he had told me he was going into the army,” Margaret says, deadpan.

Margaret, who was a school cook when Jamie was growing up, now works for the Samaritans. “She’s always looking after people,” says Jamie. “I think the show should be called Everybody’s Talking to Margaret.”

They make a good team: they finish each other’s sentences and, when Jamie trails off or struggles for an apt description, Margaret readily expands on his thoughts. Jamie credits Margaret with “giving me confidence”, while she waxes lyrical about “my boy” and says she feels she has a son and a daughter. “I got two in one. I feel very blessed.” She says she doesn’t respond to Jamie differently depending on how he is dressed – “We have a laugh either way” – while Jamie is “much less filtered” as Fifi La True.

The creators of the show have fictionalised Jamie’s story, but they have captured its essence, says Margaret. “Some details may not actually be true, but they have all happened to us in some shape or form, and when I saw it [at its pre-London run at Sheffield Crucible] I was transported. I lived through all those good, bad, shitty, whatever times again in two hours and by the end I felt like I had been in a tumble dryer. I was wrung out emotionally and it felt surreal.”

Jamie agrees. “I think our reaction even to the things that aren’t taken directly from our lives speaks of the universal nature of the show. People can relate to it whether they’re gay, straight, have kids or not.”

He now lives in London and is forging a career in the creative industries. He also has plans to speak in schools about his experience. “When you’re different at school, it can affect you deeply, because school is your entire world, but as soon as you get out it’s completely different. It’s not perfect out there but you have so much more freedom to be yourself. The people who get you down at school aren’t in your life any more.”

While his dream of performing in Las Vegas is in the past, he still has occasional outings as Fifi La True. “It’s the dressing up that I love most, and I love performing, but I don’t feel that’s my calling,” he says. “I can wear a dress, but as a boy, and my look is sort of non-gender-specific. I love being a boy and I don’t want to be a girl, but I do like the clothes. “Every day, I create my look depending on how I feel; some days I’ll want to be loud, other days I’ll want to blend in more. The interesting thing about this process is that it’s taught me I’ve become comfortable just being Jamie.”

•Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is at Apollo theatre, London W1 from 6 November.