Review of FANGIRLS musical, preview show at the Lyric Hammersmith in London. 15.07.2024 by Yve Blake.
FANGIRLS names an experience of girlhood that is so widely understood by women that is slightly more niche.
It finds the sore spot a lot of us didn’t know we have and is so refreshingly relatable we can’t help but take a big sigh of relief and say out loud “this is so refreshingly relatable!”
How have girls, teen girls, and especially pre-teen girls, been so widely victimised to the pressure of losing their sense of raw expression, passion, and fun, for the sake of growing up?
How did this happen so that we unknowingly grew up to become enforcers of this expectation upon ourselves, our friends, and our daughters?
In the same way, its humour and realism reveal the blind spots that many men have for this topic. I’ve seen the show twice now and on both occasions I have been in and overheard the same conversation between male and female. She says “this is so relatable!” And he with a blissful ignorance says “Oh, how so?”
I remember the first time I saw this show. While I was never particularly what you’d call a fangirl in my youth, but I was and continue to be a Silly Little Girl (understanding this has become part of my identity it seems (both in a way that I can’t shake and I way that I try to embrace), I had tears in my eyes as the main character Edna spoke out loud some of my own buried frustrations of believing the frailty and frivolity of my girlhood is embarrassing. Walking out of the theatre I mentioned I had cried through the show, I was laughed at!
I’m not really a Musical Theatre kind of person, but I love this show. It has provided the spaces in the theatre, in the lobby, on social medias, in conversation, for me and others to let go of the pressures society has put on women to deny themselves.
This show has done something truly beautiful. It has not simply spoken a message to uplift the girls and rebuke the Man*/mainstream, but it has reclaimed for women, the power, the community, the fire in their belly to have these conversations again.
Regarding the performance for FANGIRL’s third season, this time in London at the Lyric Hammersmith-The production is an amazing show of talent and hard work. In particular the choreography is fun and energetic while the vocals remain uncompromised. The Australian accents are almost perfectly convincing, soothing my homesick Aussie ears.
The show has fun running through its veins. You can see the playfulness in the script, in the choreography, the sound, the instrumentals, the vocals, the set, the costume, the stage, the interval!
Having the privilege of having seen the show before, I knowingly make some unfair comparisons to the first time I saw the show in Melbourne. I miss the original ‘True Connection’ band but I did enjoy the live strings. Nonetheless, I was excited to hear my favourite songs, my favourite lines, my favourite tech bits and also enjoyed the new additions. Also, with the privilege of a family connection to Zara Stanton, the Music Supervisor, whose (genius) hand is in the vocal arrangements and orchestrations, my review is almost completely biased, and proudly so.
5 stars easy. This musical healed me a little bit. x
*Capital M, because not all men… and we love the ones that don’t, but cannot deny that the ones that do, do.
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