Jackie!!! – A Camp and Chaotic Spin on the Kennedy Story

Photo by Max Alexander-Taylor

★★★

Jackie Kennedy: one of the most recognisable women of the sixties, a style icon beloved by the gays, and forever surrounded by an entourage of strange and powerful men. She is, without doubt, prime material for a musical. But Jackie!!! is not aiming for reverent biography. It is going for gleeful, unashamed farce. The result is often hilarious, sometimes flat, and oddly lacking Jackie herself at its core.

Written by Joe McNeice, Max Alexander-Taylor and Nancy Edwards, the show whirls through the scandals and tragedies of the Kennedy dynasty with a satirical wink. The cast are relentless in their commitment, swapping wigs and personas with dizzying speed. Luke Hickman’s Joseph P. Kennedy blusters with cartoonish authority, Joe McNeice’s JFK is an immaculately daft comic turn, and Rebecca d’Lacey’s double act as Lee Radziwill and Marilyn Monroe is a camp highlight that nearly steals the show.

Nancy Edwards’ Jackie, by contrast, is demure, almost ghostly. This might have worked as commentary on her lack of agency, but here it feels like she is slipping into the background of her own story. At times, it is less Jackie!!! and more The Kennedys: The Musical.

Aron Sood’s musical direction keeps the score bouncing along with sly comedic flourishes, and there are moments of sharp lyrical wit. But the songs, while amusing, rarely dig deeper than the surface. Without that emotional bite, the whole enterprise occasionally drifts into something a tad boring beneath the chaos and comedy.

There is still plenty to enjoy in the absurdity, the rapid-fire character swaps, and the gleeful skewering of America’s “royal family”. But if this is meant to be Jackie’s story, it spends too much time laughing at the circus around her to let her truly take centre stage.

Show Information

Venue: Gilded Balloon Patter House (Big Yin),

EdinburghDates: 30 July – 25 August 2025 (not 11th)

Time: 18:30

Running Time: 60 minutes

Age Guidance: 14+