FREAK SHOW *

What young gay teenager wouldn't want to have Bette Midler for a mother, (even if she is a nasty lush), and that's precisely whom young Billy Bloom, (Alex Lawther), gets in "Freak Show". Billy is the freak show of the title; an out, flamboyant teenage queen whose behaviour and appearance don't go down too well in his new high school but, this being a fairy-tale, his new best friends just happens to be the school jock, (Ian Nelson). Lawther is terrific but this mostly feel-good comedy has very little else to recommend it, (Abigail Breslin is good as a young bitch and there's always the wonderful Celia Weston), but this kind of thing has been done much better elsewhere and is neither as funny or as uplifting as it thinks it is. Lawther, the audience and indeed the Divine Miss M deserve better.