“Fangirls” at Lyric Hammersmith
Mark Shenton in West London
25 July 2024
In an evolving musical theatre landscape, shows that are designed to both appeal to and revolve around teenagers are a growing trend. Your Lie in April, which recently opened in the West End, based on a best-selling manga, is the latest example. But if longer-running musicals like Six and Heathers have their own ready-made fangirls (and some fanboys) already, then a new show called Fangirls is inviting them in already with the title alone.
Jasmine Elcock.
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.
And as it delivers a perky if improbable story, a fizzy if derivative pop score and an eye-popping if sometimes sensorily overwhelming production, it may yet find the audience that it is has been built for. As for myself, I felt a good 40 years too old to relate to it, let alone fully appreciate it. Yet despite its self-evident flaws, Paige Rattray’s sizzlingly buoyant production hits you with such confidence – and blindingly bright lights (Jessica Hung Han Yun) – that resistance is ultimately futile.
And beneath its explosive, nearly unremitting surface grind and glitter of overwhelming noise and high energy, Yve Blake’s show – which she has provided the trifecta of book, music, and lyrics for, thus ensuring a unity of tone – undertakes a more quietly subversive enquiry into teenager fandom and obsession.
In the plot here, Edna (Jasmine Elcock, a recent graduate of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and a vividly fresh performer) is an Australian teenager who lives with her single mum (played by Debbie Kurup, with concern and a sympathetic ear) and is besotted with pop star Harry (Thomas Grant, appropriately boyband cute). But when Harry comes to Sydney as part of a world tour, she’s denied the chance of seeing him live by the price of the tickets. She’s also convinced he’s unhappy, performing under duress, so she hatches a plan to both rescue him and gain his affection by kidnapping him. Not that she’s thought it through and actually knows what to do when she actually succeeds in her plan (however unlikely that may be).
The show isn’t quite sure how to handle this dark fantasy, either, and what it comes up with is sometimes in questionable taste. But there are more convincing detours along the way into the dynamics of female friendship and the bonding over a shared passion for pop stars as the projection of their different needs.
And the show – inspired by Zayn Malik’s departure from One Direction in 2015, and first premiered in Brisbane, Australia in 2019 ahead of a Sydney run – has achieved a momentum, despite a pandemic interruption, that saw it return to Sydney Opera House in 2022, and workshopped with Sonia Friedman Productions to re-develop the show for UK audiences.
The first iteration of this is what we are seeing in Lyric Hammersmith, where it is now being co-produced with Friedman. A decade ago the same venue was the launching pad for the UK premiere of the Broadway hit Spring Awakening – coincidentally also about dysfunctional teenagers – but that show was much more groundbreaking in its themes, presentation, and superb rock-based original score. It was, however, significantly ahead of its time, and failed to find an audience on its subsequent transfer to the West End.
This show, by contrast, seems to be riding a wave of shows that have sought – and found – exactly the fan following that it explores. It is also smartly packaged in an exhilarating production that makes full use of multi-media – with video projections (by Ash J Woodward) onto the triple-screen rear wall of David Fleischer’s set design – and vibrant contemporary choreography by Ebony Williams that might have been lifted direct from a pop video.
A future life is clearly being envisioned for this show. I wouldn’t want to bet the house on its chances of success, but if the reactions of a youthful first-night audience is anything go by, it may yet find bigger advocates than me.
