Review: Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World – The Musical (Kenny Wax Family Entertainment and MAST Mayflower Studios)

Thursday 7 December 2023
The Lowry, Salford

On Thursday 7th December, I was at The Lowry for the press night of Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World, a musical based on the picture book by Kate Pankhurst. The radio version of this review will be going out on Hannah's Bookshelf on North Manchester FM on Saturday 20th January, but here’s the blog version…

Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World has been adapted from the picture book of the same name by Kate Pankhurst, with the stage adaptation by Chris Bush, music by Miranda Cooper and Jennifer Decilveo, and lyrics by Chris Bush and Miranda Cooper. It’s a one-act show, with four of the cast taking on multiple roles.

The framing narrative introduces us to Jade (Georgia Grant-Anderson), a young girl who wanders away from a school trip to a museum and finds herself in the ‘Gallery of Greats’, a section of the museum that’s off-limits to visitors. Actually, it’s not strictly true to say Jade wanders off – she’s actually left behind by her teachers and classmates, kicking off the show’s underlying storyline about self-discovery and self-worth.

As she wonders why no one ever pays her any attention, Jade is interrupted by the arrival of the first ‘Fantastically Great Women’: Amelia Earhart (Leah Vassell), Gertrude Ederle (Chlöe Hart) and Sacagawea (Elena Breschi), who perform an energetic number about finding where you want to go in life (the theme being the reason for the particular grouping of these three women). After this, Jade is immersed fully in the ‘Gallery of Greats’, meeting a parade of figures from history, including Frida Kahlo, Emmeline Pankhurst, Marie Curie, Jane Austen, Mary Anning, Mary Seacole and Rosa Parks, all played by Vassell, Hart, Breschi and Jennifer Caldwell.

The overall design of the show captures something of the picture book quality of its source. Joanna Scotcher’s costume and set design are bold and colourful, often using a single colour for a character. Outfits also make clear visual reference to the lives and careers of the women: Gertrude Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel, is wearing a bathing suit, for instance, and Frida Kahlo is wearing a flower crown similar to those depicted in her self-portraits. Props are big and eye-catching, with an almost cartoonish quality to them that makes them more like symbols than real objects.

Elena Breschi, photo credit Pamela Raith Photography

But it’s not just about the visuals here. The performance style is similarly bold and colourful, with energetic – almost frenetic – dance routines (choreographed by Danielle ‘Rhimes’ Lecointe) that see the performers climbing, jumping and moving the set around, disappearing through doors and reemerging as different characters.

In the middle of this is Jade, who is dressed in a notably grey school uniform. Jade typically begins each new number as a static observer, sometimes at the sidelines, sometimes caught up in the middle of the whirlwind. She often looks confused by the appearance of a new group of ‘Greats’, asking questions or ducking to get out of the way of whatever high-energy ensemble has burst from the doors. Without fail, though, she gets drawn into the performance, joining in the dance and taking inspiration from the words of the song and the careers of the women.

Georgia Grant-Anderson, photo credit Pamela Raith Photography

It feels as though Jade is imagined as an avatar for the audience (or, at least, for its younger members). She speaks of feeling overlooked and ignored, and of wanting to find her own path in life. Although there are some specific details about her home life given, her story is generic enough for the audience to identify with her situation. So, when the ‘Great Women’ speak to Jade, giving her lessons on how to find her path in life, they are also speaking to the audience, offering inspirational stories to younger viewers (girls, of course, but there’s no reason why boys shouldn’t take inspiration from the stories as well) who might be having the same self-doubts as Jade.

The message of the show is really not subtle, but then again that should be pretty clear from the title! However, just because the message is transparent doesn’t mean that the overall show lacks depth or subtlety.

As someone who is considerably older than the target audience for Pankhurst’s book, but someone with a background in both academic research and public engagement, I was very curious to see just how ‘deep’ the historical content of the show would go. And, I have to say, I was very impressed.

The songs that introduce these figures from history are all – as you might imagine – the length of a standard musical number. And that’s not a lot of time to cover, not only the salient facts of a woman’s career, but also the context in which she lived and the impact her work had on subsequent generations (how she ‘Changed the World’). And yet, that is exactly what the songs manage to do, and all in a format and language that will be accessible to school-age children.

The songs cover aspects of discrimination – sexism, as you might imagine, but also racism and classism – as well as introducing some of the more personal challenges the individual women faced. Frida Kahlo, for instance, introduces her song by explaining the physical disabilities she had as a result of childhood polio and the bus accident that left her seriously injured as a young woman. She speaks of how this prevented her from following her original ambitions, and how she turned to painting during her recovery. It’s heavy stuff, and it’s hard not to feel some of the pain in Breschi’s powerful performance, which is at turns uplifting and defiant.

But I really have to say something about Emmeline Pankhurst – surely the most memorable appearance in the show.

Jennifer Caldwell, photo credit Pamela Raith Photography

Emmeline Pankhurst (Jennifer Caldwell) is played here as a military general. Taking inspiration from the phrase ‘soldiers in petticoats’, which appears in the ‘Sister Suffragette’ song in Mary Poppins and is repeated in Fantastically Great Women, the show ditches the petticoats and just has its suffragettes appear as soldiers, in purple combat trousers, military jackets and fringed epaulettes. Caldwell’s Emmeline (with, perhaps, a deeper Lancashire accent than the historic Emmeline would have had, though its nice to have a nod to her northern roots) captures the militancy of the suffragette movement, as well as the imposing, formidable reputation of its founder. Her performance is way more confrontational than any of the others in the show, with Caldwell taking a handheld mic from her pocket and rapping at one point, but it’s hard to argue with what she’s saying. By the end of the song, the audience is fired up and ready to follow her, shouting ‘Deeds Not Words’ whenever she gestures. It’s a stylization, but a really original one that evokes, rather than straightforwardly depicts, the unnerving force behind the WSPU and the suffragette cause.

Two other quite different highlights for me were the song ‘Mary, Mary and Marie’, which imagines Mary Anning (Hart), Mary Seacole (Vassell) and Marie Curie (Breschi) as a trio of superheroes, led by the mysterious Agent Fifi (aka WWII secret agent and spy-trainer Marie Christine Chilver, played by Caldwell). ‘Zany’ is probably the vibe here, with physical comedy and silly costumes giving way to some more down-to-earth commentary on the obstacles faced by the women during their lifetimes. It’s very good fun, and I loved the inclusion of Agent Fifi, probably one of the show’s lesser-known historical figures (and, to be honest, still appropriately enigmatic by the end of the show!).

Leah Vassell, Georgia Grant-Anderson, photo credit Pamela Raith Photography

Towards the end of the show, we have the most moving and reflective number, which serves as a reminder that, while some battles can be won, others tragically can’t. Jade meets Rosa Parks (Vassell) who is dressed in less stylized clothing and is seated on a bench. They speak about structural inequalities, particularly relating to racial inequalities and discrimination, and then Parks introduces another young girl. It is Anne Frank, played by Millie Kiss (who has not appeared as any of the other ‘Great Women’). The song that follows, ‘World of Colour’, is sung by Parks to her two young companions, and it successfully negotiates trauma and resilience with a tone that is both poignant and beautiful.

Overall, Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World is a very fun show that will certainly capture the imagination, if not inspire, audience members of all ages. Younger viewers will enjoy seeing the historical figures they’ve encountered in school lessons or Kate Pankhurst’s original book brought to life on stage with vivid colours and vibrant performances. But older viewers will also find a lot to enjoy, and I suspect there were quite a few people planning to Google ‘Agent Fifi’ after the show I saw.

But, most importantly for a musical, the songs are catchy, the dances and costumes memorable, and the finale infectiously upbeat. It’s a very fun night out – for all ages. This one is a strong recommendation from me.

Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World was on at The Lowry on 5th December-7th January, as part of a national tour. For upcoming tour dates and more information about the show, please visit the show's website.

Countdown to Christmas: Day 7

Another day celebrating the Countdown to Christmas, and it was another very festive one! (But then, you probably guessed that, didn't you?)

Christmas Earrings

Another new pair of Christmas earrings for me! Sparkly Christmas jumpers from Shadowstar Jewellery!

Christmas Jumper Day

And speaking of Christmas jumpers... today was Save the Children's Christmas Jumper Day, so we were all dressed up at work at the Pankhurst Centre today. I couldn't take a picture with my headband, earrings and t-shirt on it, so here's two festive selfies I took at work.

Festive Dinner Date

Me and the Heritage Manager from the museum were off out for a special event tonight, so she took me out for dinner at Pizza Express first. I had a very festive Mushroom and Truffle Pizza followed by Snowflake Brownie!

Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World

We were at the press night of Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World at The Lowry tonight (a musical based on the books by Kate Pankhurst). Really enjoyed the show (especially the very cool depiction of Emmeline Pankhurst, of course)!

Advent Tea

Behind Door No. 7 in my Bird and Blend Tea advent calendar... Bedknobs and Broomsticks!

Advent Jewellery

And behind Door No. 7 in my Avon jewellery calendar... little silver triangle earrings!

Review: Atlas (Oddly Moving)

Tuesday 8th March 2022
The Lowry, Salford

On Tuesday 8th March, I was at The Lowry to see Atlas, a retelling of the Atlas myth by Oddly Moving. I’ll be reviewing this production on Hannah’s Bookshelf, my weekly literature show on North Manchester FM, later in the month. But here’s the blog version of my review…

Produced by Turtle Key Arts and directed by Charlotte Mooney, Atlas is a three-woman, single-act performance that retells the classical myth of Atlas, the titan condemned to eternally carry the entire weight of the cosmos, through physical theatre, storytelling and circus skills.

The play opens on a fairly plain and empty stage – this is a piece of theatre that relies much more of props and performance than stage dressing. A woman (Grania Pickard) collects a cardboard box full of toy figures, lays them out on a mirrored surface, and begins to narrate the story of Cronos, Zeus, and the war between the gods and the titans. It’s a light-hearted and intimate narration, in which Pickard comically illustrates Cronos devouring his own children with the help of some plastic dinosaurs and zoo animals. It feels almost like the way you might tell the story to children, and both the performance space and the performance style enhance the almost cosy informality of the narration.

When the woman reaches the introduction to Atlas, and Cronos’s recruitment of this particular titan to lead the army against Zeus and the other gods, Pickard is joined on stage by another performer (Arielle Lauzon) who silently dons a breastplate and wrist guards, ready for battle.

It’s at this point that the performance moves away from the gentle storytelling and into a more physical representation of the myth. The war between the titans and the gods is illustrated through stylized physical theatre, with Pickard and Lauzon being joined by the third performer, Helena Berry.

As the play continues, different modes of physical performance are used to create vignettes in Atlas’s story. Berry mimes the Labours of Herakles; Lauzon juggles with the golden apples of the Hesperides; Pickard collects and deposits an assortment of small hessian sacks, moving them round the stage to transform them from sandbags on the battlefield, to a weighty burden to be cleared away single-handedly, to sacks of soil that turn the stage into a garden. The fluidity of these movements works well with the storytelling style, as though we’ve moved from imagining the story through the plastic animal toys to imagining it through the movement of the performers on stage.

As I said, the story is presented through a series of vignettes, which are laced together by Pickard’s storytelling narration. A standout for me was Berry’s swaggering evocation of Herakles. This sequence uses mime and physical performance to evoke a sort of macho pointlessness to the Twelve Labours; without saying a word, Berry’s physicality here conveys a lot about the character. This is a Herakles who can perform amazing feats – and doesn’t he just know it? It’s a compelling and lightly comical vignette, which stays just on the right side of absurdity.

While Atlas might be described as a dynamic performance, with Pickard, Lauzon and Berry moving seamlessly on and off the stage, interacting with the props and switching physical styles without missing a beat, it’s also a performance that makes powerful use of stasis as well.

The moment when Atlas is commanded to lift the cosmos and hold it for eternity is evoked through Lauzon lifting the circular mirror (previously used to lay out the plastic toys of Pickard’s introduction) above her head. The stance Lauzon adopts and the effort apparent in raising the mirror above her head, followed by a breath-holding moment as she locks her arms and stands stock still to keep the weight in the air, is impressive. As the mirror – the ‘cosmos’ – slowly weighs her down, gradually forcing her into a crouch before she adopts the pose we might be familiar with from art and sculpture.

The sequence is almost visceral, and Lauzon’s performance not only encourages the audience to ‘feel’ the weight pressing down on Atlas, but also to emphasize – in a very physical way – with both the pain and the resignation as the titan accepts the punishment.

And this is something that continues throughout the piece. Lauzon offers us a very human Atlas. Again, without using any words, the physical performance conveys character, and the audience is tacitly encouraged to imagine the human emotions that might be accompany such a super-human (or inhuman) burden.

That said, while Lauzon and Berry evoke mythological figures through wordless physical performance, there are words here. Pickard’s narration continues throughout the piece, and the words she speaks offer another dimension to what we are watching.

Although the narration is mainly a continuation of the introductory narration of the classical myth, with Pickard continuing the intimate and gentle style of the opening sequence, another story emerges through interjections and asides. And this bit was something of a (pleasant) surprise.

The other story – and I don’t want to give too much away about this – is told through such light-touch narration that you might almost miss the significance of what’s being said, particularly in the initial interjection from Pickard, as she collects up the weighty sacks and holds them in her arms. The way in which an entire character and backstory is conjured through almost minimal narration is impressive. Pickard actually speaks very few lines of this ‘other’ story, and at one point says only a single, seemingly misplaced word, and yet this opens up a whole other perspective on the Atlas myth and its significance. And, as with Lauzon’s physical performance as the weighed-down Atlas, it subtly encourages an empathetic response in the audience, without offering heavy-handed explanations or directives.

I know I must have overused the words ‘intimacy’ and ‘empathy’ in this review, but these were absolutely my lasting impressions of this performance. The physical performances combine perfectly with the storytelling to share a simple tale with the audience – but, as it transpires, there is more than one story being told here.

I thoroughly enjoyed Atlas. It was an engaging and immersive piece of physical theatre, with three excellent performances and a real charm to the deceptively straightforward storytelling. If you get chance to catch a future performance, this one is a recommendation from me.

Atlas by Oddly Moving was on at The Lowry, Salford, on Tuesday 8th March, as part of a UK tour. For more information, and for future tour dates, please visit the Turtle Key Arts website.

Review: The Ballad of Maria Marten (Eastern Angles)

Thursday 23rd September 2021
The Lowry, Salford

Although September has been dominated by the Greater Manchester Fringe for me, I’ve also had the opportunity to see some non-Fringe theatre this month. On Thursday 23rd September, I was at The Lowry in Salford to see The Ballad of Maria Marten by Eastern Angles. I’ll be reviewing this production for Hannah’s Bookshelf, my weekly literature show on North Manchester FM, on Saturday 2nd October, but here’s the blog version…

Written by Beth Flintoff and first performed in 2018, The Ballad of Maria Marten is the story of a notorious and gruesome murder that took place in Suffolk in 1827. Except that it isn’t. And that’s what makes this play special.

The murder of Maria Marten by William Corder sparked a media frenzy at the time, and the case was almost instantly immortalized in ballads, broadsheets, popular theatre and – later – film dramatizations. The grisly nature of the victim’s injuries, the fact that her body lay undiscovered for a year after her death, and the infamous treatment of her killer’s body after his execution, was a gift for sensationalizers. Over the years, writers have devoted their attention to William Corder’s character, suggesting various possible motives for his crimes, and to suggesting alternative theories that might throw doubt on his guilt (despite his confession). There have also been some sustained efforts to imply some culpability on the part of the victim: Maria’s three illegitimate children have been used as evidence of her ‘loose’ character, and her lower class status has equally been a talking-point in some accounts of the case.

The Ballad of Maria Marten stands as a powerful – and timely – corrective to this tradition of presenting the case known as the Red Barn Murder. It is explicitly not the story of William Corder’s crime, but rather the story of Maria Marten’s life.

Photo credit: Tony Bartholomew

The play begins with the rather unsettling entrance of a spectral Maria Marten (played by Elizabeth Crarer) walking onto the stage in the tattered remnants of the clothes she was wearing when she was buried. She holds a ragged umbrella over one shoulder, and the injuries she sustained before her death are brutally visible on her face and neck. Maria addresses the audience – as she will do a number of times during the show – confronting our expectations and questioning how much we think we know about her. She talks about her own death and the nature of the injuries she sustained, but she refers to her killer only as ‘he’ and ‘him’. There is no direct evocation of William Corder at this point of the story.

What follows this entrance really sets the tone of the rest of the production. I’ll confess that I was expecting to get a lump in my throat at the end of the play, so the fact that I was welling up at the beginning was a bit of a surprise.

A group of women, singing softly, surround the spectral Maria and remove the tattered clothing. Bringing bowls and cloths, they wipe off the marks of her injuries, and then tidy her hair and redress her in fresh clothes. According to the programme, Flintoff’s original notes in the script state that these women ‘unmurder’ Maria, and this is exactly how I experienced the scene. It’s a dramatic and empowering sequence, but it is also one weighty with sadness due our knowledge that Maria was murdered. Whatever we see on stage from this moment, Maria’s ending is in part already written.

Photo credit: Tony Bartholomew

The play is about Maria’s life as a young working-class woman in Polstead, Suffolk in the 1820s, beginning when she is ten years old. In the first act, we meet Maria’s friends: Phoebe (played by Jessica Dives), Theresa (Bethan Nash), confident Sarah (Lydia Bakelmun) and awkward outsider Lucy (Susie Barrett), with whom she dreams of being as bold and adventurous as men are allowed to be. We also meet Maria’s new stepmother, Ann (played by Sarah Goddard), who is young and nervy, but determined to be a good friend to her newly acquired family. Ann’s arrival is told with humour and warmth, but it also serves as a stark reminder of social context. While we might giggle a little at Ann’s clumsy attempts to befriend Maria, she also articulates a very real fear of rejection. If Maria doesn’t accept Ann, then her father might decide not to marry after all. She has nowhere else to go if he ends their engagement, and she fears the workhouse might be her only option. For all their boldness and camaraderie, the women in this world are entirely reliant on the whims of men.

Nevertheless, Maria’s life plays out for us with verve, humour and hope. The performances are excellent. Crarer is captivating as Maria, capturing her youthful ambitions and aspirations, but tempering this with an edge of confrontation as she breaks the fourth wall and reminds us of what will happen to her when she’s just twenty-five years old. Goddard’s performance as Ann is also very striking. Her depiction of Ann matures before our eyes, from the nervous new stepmother to a solid and constant presence in Maria’s life. Goddard brings to life a good and kind woman who deals with life’s hardships as best she can, until bringing us to a heart-breaking first act finale with raw and visceral emotional depth.

While it’s easy to see the other characters as foils to Maria – images of alternative models of working-class womanhood in distinction to Maria’s own path – the actors bring depth and humanity to their performances that creates more of an ensemble feel. In addition to playing Maria’s friends, some of the actors double up on parts. Bakelmun plays the lusty and worldly-wise Sarah, but also appears as Lady Cooke, a member of the gentry who takes a shine to Maria and serves to remind us that sometimes it is hard to be a woman, even when your family owns most of the village’s land.

The play has an entirely female cast – a deliberate creative choice – but some male characters appear. The fathers of two of Maria’s children, Thomas Corder and Peter Matthews, are played by Barrett and Nash respectively. Barrett brings Thomas Corder to life as a young and arrogant man who enjoys lording his elevated status as a farmer’s son over the labouring classes. However, Barrett also gives him some humanity, and the emphasis on his youth means that we never truly hate him – we just don’t feel he deserves the respect of a woman like Maria. Nash has the unenviable task of performing the closest thing the play has to a ‘good man’, and her portrayal of Peter Matthews has a softness bordering on tragedy.

As noted, no one plays William Corder. This character ‘appears’ towards the end of the first act, and is central to the developments of the second, but he never appears on stage. We learn of his character from the reports of others, and we learn of his actions by seeing the devastating effects they have on Maria.

Photo credit: Tony Bartholomew

The actors offer us performances steeped in humanity and empathy, and the script gives us a solid balance between engaging humour and brutal truths. But the production’s energy and vitality is the result of a strong creative team. The single set (set construction by Dominic Eddington and scenic art by Caitriona Penny) – dominated throughout by the façade of the barn in which Maria’s body was hidden – works well, as it is seamlessly transformed into Maria’s cottage, a village fair, the drawing room of Lady Cooke, and various locations around Polstead. Costumes and wardrobe by Faby Pym are also well-designed and put to powerful use. In addition to the dressing and undressing scenes we see on-stage (following the initial ‘unmurdering’ sequence, there are a number of other moments in which Maria is recostumed by women in front of our eyes), the quick changes required by the actors doubling on parts is quite amazing. I swear there were times when I was convinced I’d seen Sarah and Lady Cooke, or Lucy and Thomas Corder, on stage at the same time, despite the fact that the characters’ costumes were distinctively and elaborately different! All credit to Hal Chambers’s direction for pulling off this effect.

It has to be said, however, that it is the play’s ending that will really stick with audiences. As I’ve said, this isn’t the story of the murder of Maria Marten or the trial and execution of William Corder in the usual sense. It ends, then, not with Corder at the gallows, but with the burning of the so-called ‘Red Barn’ (the building that has dominated the production’s backdrop, that Maria has constantly reminded us was the scene of her demise, that has become a byname for the case itself, and that the programme and marketing material has shown engulfed in flames). Following the execution of William Corder, this building became a dark tourist attraction in Polstead for a time, before it was burnt down, presumably by irritated locals. The Ballad of Maria Marten transforms this historical moment into a powerful summation of the play’s central message, ‘unmurdering’ Maria as surely as the re-dressing sequence at the beginning of the first act. I defy anyone not to shed a few tears as the smoke begins to rise.

The Ballad of Maria Marten is a stunning piece of theatre. It is timely in its message – the programme notes the murder of Sarah Everard as an example of why Maria’s story continues to be relevant, and I was chillingly aware of Sabina Nessa’s murder while watching, which occurred just six days before the show’s press night at The Lowry, but the production was also informed by creative workshops with survivors of domestic violence and abuse, and its depiction of gaslighting and coercive control is truly unsettling in the way it feels both startlingly modern and convincingly historic at the same time.

You may be wondering whether you should go and see The Ballad of Maria Marten if you are unfamiliar with the Red Barn Murder case. Or, conversely, you may be wondering if there’s any point in going to see it if you feel you already know everything there is to know about William Corder, his crime and his execution. In both cases – or even if, like I was, you’re somewhere between the two – this is a strong recommendation. This is a play that is more ‘true life’ than ‘true crime’, with compelling performances, a thought-provoking script, and excellent production and direction, and it’s definitely worth checking out.

The Ballad of Maria Marten was on at The Lowry, Salford as part of a national tour. For more information about upcoming performances, please visit the show’s website.

Review: The Thunder Girls (Blake and Squire)

Thursday 26th September 2019
The Lowry, Salford

On Thursday 26th September, I was at The Lowry in Salford for the press night of Blake and Squire’s The Thunder Girls on behalf of North Manchester FM. I’ll be playing the radio version of my review on the station on Tuesday, but here’s the blog version…

Photo credit: Rob Martin and Blake & Squire

Written by Melanie Blake and directed by Joyce Branagh, The Thunder Girls was on at The Lowry from 24th-28th September. I was at the press night on Thursday 26th September, which saw a rather enthusiastic crowd attend. Unusually – almost unheard of – for a debut play, The Thunder Girls sold out its entire run at The Lowry, and the press night was certainly full to capacity.

Based on Blake’s novel of the same name – which she adapted for the stage with Fiona Looney – The Thunder Girls tells the story of an 80s girl band who are brought back together 30 years after an acrimonious split. The play is (almost) entirely carried by the four actors playing the members of the band, with just one other character ‘appearing’ through phone calls made on speakerphone. Undoubtedly, part of the reason for the play selling out its run was the cast – and more on that anon – but (and this was certainly true on press night), there was also a great deal of curiosity as to how Blake’s script would be informed by its writer’s experience of working in the music biz – and of orchestrating reunion gigs for 80s bands.

The play is billed as being about the ‘Reunion Dinner from Hell’. While this is certainly a fair description of Blake’s novel, it doesn’t quite seem accurate for the play. The play takes in the lush – if somewhat brash – mansion (created with some excellent attention to detail in Richard Foxton’s set design) belonging to Chrissie, the Thunder Girl who split the band all those years before, took the copyright and royalties and forged a successful solo career to the disgust of her former bandmates. Chrissie and the band’s former manager Rick have summoned Roxanne, Anita and Carly to the house – but there doesn’t appear to be any dinner on offer! Instead, the women work through their festering resentments with a hefty side order of Prosecco, which they down liberally throughout the show.

Photo credit: Rob Martin and Blake & Squire

The first to arrive at the house – and the first person we see on stage – is Carly, played by Sandra Marvin. Carly was the youngest member of the Thunder Girls, but she was the songwriter behind their greatest hits, which she has been prevented from playing solo due to legal wranglings over rights with Chrissie. Carly is followed by Roxanne, played by Beverly Callard, who has fallen on harder times since the band split. Roxie is a heavy-drinking single mum, who is trying to make ends meet running a clothes shop. After some back-and-forth between Carly and Roxie, Chrissie (played by Carol Harrison) makes her entrance – but it’s not until the end of the first act that we meet the fourth Thunder Girl, Anita (played by Coleen Nolan), who has been missing since a disastrous Eurovision performance.

The Thunder Girls is really very well-cast. Blake has been hands-on with most aspects of the production, and she cast the show herself (with Angela Squire). There are some well-judged decisions made. Callard, Harrison and Marvin are all well-known from soap operas, meaning that they are well able to handle the high-drama, histrionics and stinging dialogue. (And this is the only play I’ve seen this year that’s listed a ‘Cat Fight Director’ (Kaitlin Howard) in its programme!) The casting of Nolan as Anita adds a nice extra layer of self-referential humour, as not only was Nolan (of course) in a famous 80s girl band, but it was Blake herself who brought about the band’s reunion tour in the 2000s. The final performer is Gary Webster, who is voice of Rick, playing Charlie to the Thunder Girls’ Angels but also, perhaps, one of the architects of their various misfortunes.

Photo credit: Rob Martin and Blake & Squire

Of the performances, Callard and Nolan were real standouts for me. Callard is really very funny as Roxie – she gets some fantastic lines, which are delivered with lovely northern relish – but she also imbues the character with a sweet vulnerability full of regrets and sadness. Nolan is great as Anita, revealing a strong sense of comic timing that hits the right notes. Marvin and Harrison are also very watchable, though they don’t quite get the opportunity to stretch their range. Marvin’s Carly is the band member who seems to be most content, but the points at which her smiley optimism cracks offer the more interesting performance. She also gets to deliver a hilarious retort to being asked if she’s had a boob job (‘Nah. It’s cake.’) Harrison begins the play as an unrepentant villain, but the second act introduces some more compassionate interactions with Roxie to soften her character.

That said, there are few surprises in characterization here – in many ways, the appeal of The Thunder Girls lies in familiarity, rather than shock, and so the character arcs play out pretty much as we might expect. Of course, that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to watch. Even though I had a pretty good idea from the start where things were going, I still found myself genuinely caring about the four women and their friendship. Admittedly, there were a couple of fluffed lines here and there, but the cast made up for this with some well-judged ad libs at other points. At one point, a line about Steps provoked a rather dramatic reaction (and some visible corpsing from the cast), due Claire Richards being in the audience. To be honest, I think this was completely forgivable though, as the audience felt like we were all in on the joke.

Photo credit: Rob Martin and Blake & Squire

The Thunder Girls isn’t a musical, but it does include some music (written by Blake, with Lee Monteverde and Jack Wheeler). Each of the characters performs a solo song and, as you may well expect, there is a group number at the end. The solo numbers did feel a little bit superfluous, as they mostly just reiterated aspects of plot and character from the dialogue. The final number was a lot of fun, and certainly got the audience to their feet. However, the Thunder Girls’ big number (supposedly their signature tune) is a little anachronistic. Musically, it feels far more 1990s than 1980s, and I struggled to imagine it being a hit thirty years ago.

But overall, The Thunder Girls is a very enjoyable show, with some excellent (and very funny) dialogue, and a rare opportunity to watch older female characters taking centre-stage and talking about age, life experience and regrets in an engaging, humorous and honest way (except for Chrissie, who isn’t admitting her real age). If the show does tour, I can see it being a great success, and it’s a definite recommendation from me.

The Thunder Girls was on at The Lowry, Salford on 24th-28th September.