Tag Archives: Rachelle Diedericks

Review – Pericles, Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 10th September 2024

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There aren’t many Shakespearean plays that one misses out on during a lifetime of theatregoing, but Pericles is likely to be one. I’d never seen this play before, and, indeed hadn’t looked at the text for at least 45 years. But there’s no doubt this is a fascinating play – rarely can the old phrase “from the sublime to the ridiculous” be so appropriate concerning the pen of our Beloved Bard.

Alfred EnochWith more episodes and locations than your average picaresque novel, we follow the fortunes of Pericles as he leaves Tyre (where he is Prince) to sail to Antioch, where he hopes to marry the unnamed Princess of that city state. To win her hand, he must answer a riddle; failure to answer it results in death. Pericles solves it in an instant, but making the solution public also results in death – bit of a Catch-22 there, probably a riddle worth avoiding. Therefore he flees Antioch before he can be murdered. Next, he reaches Tarsus, stopping by to offer food to the famine-stricken city; shipwrecked on leaving Tarsus, he lands in Pentapolis, where King Simonides is allowing the winner of a jousting contest to marry his daughter Thaisa. Naturally our hero wins the contest, and Thaisa’s hand. But all is not well; sailing back to Tyre, they are shipwrecked (again) and Thaisa dies giving birth to a daughter, Marina. Following tradition, Thaisa’s body is placed in a coffin and cast off into the waters, never to be seen again. Or is she…?

AntiochusThat’s enough storytelling to fill a book and we’ve only just reached the interval. Pericles must be the direct opposite of Waiting for Godot, where, famously, nothing happens. Here, everything that could possibly happen, happens. However, the early scenes of the play – up till Pericles’ arrival in Pentapolis – are (there’s no point beating about the bush) absolutely awful. Not, I hasten to add, because of the RSC’s production, Tamara Harvey’s direction or the company’s acting; it’s simply the words with which they have to grapple.

Pericles aloftIt is largely believed that the play is a collaboration between Shakespeare and An Other Writer; Shakespeare wrote the good bits and AOW did the rest. The mystery man is likely to be George Wilkins, an innkeeper, criminal and pamphleteer, and an associate of the King’s Men acting company, hence his familiarity with Shakespeare and his work. The language in those opening scenes is flat but garbled; intractably impersonating the florid style of the silver poets who had gone before, but falling far short of the standard required. Fortunately, the use of judicious cuts combined with the happy circumstance that Pericles is one of Shakespeare’s shortest works, means we can get on with the decent meat of the play after about half an hour or so.

SimonidesThe average Collected Shakespeare will list the play as one of the comedies. But there is some tough material here: incest, kidnapping to be sold into prostitution, death during childbirth; frankly, not a lot to laugh at. However, these elements are balanced with some truly engaging scenes and performances, resulting in many feelgood moments and comic sequences. The highlight of the production is King Simonides’ not-so-secret machinations to engineer a marriage between Thaisa and Pericles, a blissfully funny performance by Christian Patterson. All the scenes set in the brothel prickle with danger and corruption; and if you love a happy ending, I can’t think of a bigger jump from despair to elation than that experienced by Pericles in Act Five.

The ropes that bindJonathan Fensom’s simple set is dominated by ropes, suspended and intertwining; a perfect choice for a play where so many scenes are set at sea. Claire van Kampen’s evocative music is delicately and moving played by Elinor Peregrin’s team of five musicians, strong on woodwind and percussion. The text has been smartly cut and revised so that what remains of Gower’s chorus-type introductions to each act have been given to Marina, even before the audience realises it is she who is speaking. There’s only one directorial decision that jars; the artificial and showy use of hands aloft by the background ensemble. Perhaps it’s meant to recreate the dumbshows of the original text; whatever, it just looks silly. Stop it.

Rachelle DiedericksAlfred Enoch gives a compelling performance as Pericles; a truly noble character who rises above all his misfortunes to remain magnanimous, honest and beneficent. Mr Enoch embodies these virtues throughout the play with his clarity of interpretation, physical agility and the sheer emotion of that final scene. As his long lost Marina, the ever-reliable Rachelle Diedericks is a chip off the old block, conveying the essence of purity and decency, pleading her case for survival with lucid clarity. There are also excellent performances from Philip Bird as the super-reasonable Helicanus, Christian Patterson as the excitable Simonides, Leah Haile as the modest Thaisa, Kel Matsena as the noble Lysimachus and Alfred EnochJacqueline Boatswain as the kindly Cerimon and a truly villainous Bawd, matched with an equally vicious Pander played by Felix Hayes.

An excellent opportunity to see a rarely performed Shakespeare; not exactly a masterpiece but containing some of his best characterisations and individual scenes. After Pericles leaves Stratford on 21 September, it transfers to the Chicago Shakespeare Theater from 20 October.

Production Photos by Johan Persson

4-starsFour They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – The House Party, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 4th May 2024 (Preview)

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Strindberg’s Miss Julie was first staged in 1889, and has always been a source of fresh theatrical material, crying out for new directors to have a stab at it, to keep it relevant and contemporary, and to play around with it to get something new out of it. In fact, it was only ten years ago that a new version by Rebecca Lenkiewicz was produced on the very same Minerva stage, preserving the structure and roles of the original play but with 21st century bite.

Now it’s Laura Lomas’ turn, with her version of the play now called The House Party, co-produced with two of the best production companies around, Headlong and Frantic Assembly, and directed by Holly Race Roughan with her usual feel for a quirky twist. Set in her father’s kitchen, Julie’s wishes dominate all domestic proceedings, including the house party that’s arranged for later that day – hence the title of the play. She’s besties with Christina, who has an interview at Cambridge University in the morning; her beloved and trusted boyfriend Jon is going to drive her there.

Christina and Jon have a good thing going, but Julie is never one to miss a chance to stir things, and when Jon confesses to Julie that he used to fancy her five years earlier when his mum used to come and clean for her dad, she doesn’t dissuade him from – if I may be so crude, gentle reader, thinking with his d*ck. Successfully having ruined the fairytale dreams of her friend, the usual Miss Julie tragic consequences ensue, with heartache, broken trust, livid arguments and a suicide attempt.

Unlike the original, Ms Lomas’ version bookends the classic one-act structure of the play with two extra scenes. In the first, we see Julie and Christina gearing up for the party, a pair of giggling girls preparing to have fun. This allows us to see deeper into the characters and assess for ourselves the extent of their friendship and the risks that either of them might be prepared to take in order to get their own way. The final scene offers us what you might consider to be an alternative ending to the traditional play, but to save the impact that the writer wants it to achieve, I’m not going to say any more about it – don’t want to spoil any surprises for you.

Loren Elstein’s set design is impressive; the stage is dominated by a superb, sleek, top-of-the-range kitchen island that includes concealed wine fridge, dishwasher, cupboards and so on. It emphasises beautifully just how rich Julie’s dad must be to have an enviable kitchen like this; all the best equipment, and a worktop to die for. Upstairs is a bathroom, all modern opaque window wall, like an ensuite in the finest Oberoi hotel bedroom. A statement-making lamp hovers over the plush white sofa (White? What were they thinking?!) and that’s all that’s necessary to suggest this ultra-privileged, ultra-modern lifestyle.

One of my favourite mantras about theatre is that I would prefer to see a brave failure more than a lazy success. It’s very subjective as to what constitutes both failure and success in those terms; there’s absolutely nothing lazy about this production at all, but it doesn’t work 100%. It is, however, very brave in its concept, and despite its failures (I think there are a couple) it’s extremely enjoyable and watchable. Here’s the first problem: this production has a gimmick, which is that audience members form part of the house party guests. Once the prologue is finished and the party gets underway these audience members emerge from behind a darkened screen where they have been watching and waiting like an eerie ghostly presence, filing out into a selection of sofas, seats, chairs and benches.

I must be honest; the on-stage seats look incredibly uncomfortable, as did the poor members of the public as they blundered about the stage trying to find spare seats. It’s a risky undertaking by the production to stage it this way; you fully rely on these audience members to play ball and behave. Bizarrely, it makes zero difference to how we appreciate the play anyway. The only effect it has is to raise a small accidental laugh when audience members have to budge up on the big sofa whilst actors try to squeeze themselves into whatever gap has appeared between them.

Admittedly, in Strindberg’s original, there is a ball taking place off-stage but it rarely intrudes upon the meat of the story. In this production, however, the party takes centre stage, with dynamic dancing and music and light effects, and the constant presence of the audience members who are party hangers-on reminds us all the way through of the fun and games that is happening elsewhere. But the whole notion of the party is completely irrelevant to the story and the dramas that emerge between the three main characters. The final scene, which constitutes a twenty-minute second act, causes those audience members to feel even more surplus to requirement; that party has long finished. Structuring the production on the party is frankly pointless, and although the party dancing is admirably and acrobatically performed, it has no place in the show at all. It’s just a distraction.

The second failure is the fact that the final scene exists at all. In the programme, Laura Lomas states that she wanted it to express her wish that the play shouldn’t “be making a judgment about what kind of life is a life worth living”. One of the strengths of Strindberg’s play is that the final outcome of what we’ve witnessed is left to the audience’s imagination; it’s a deliciously inconclusive ending. The final scene of The House Party, however, eliminates all possibility of doubt and recounts exactly what happened. There’s no room for any I wonder ifs at the end of this show. It is brave; it is bold. But I wish they hadn’t done it.

In the programme Laura Lomas also says she wants the play to remove some of Strindberg’s misogyny that’s inherent in the original. Does it succeed? There’s no doubt that Lomas’ Jon is much less ruthless in his dealings with Julie than Strindberg’s Jean. However, at the end of the day, Jon is still triumphant, getting everything he wants. Julie comes across as much more manipulative than Jon, who’s just led by the horns to do what she wants. Christina remains an under-achiever, accepting a lower position in life than she merits.

The show we saw was only its second preview, but I can’t imagine that the three central performances are going to get any better. This is not the first time I’ve seen the excellent Rachelle Diedericks work with Holly Race Roughan and they clearly have a brilliant understanding of each other. Ms Diedericks is spellbinding as the put-upon Christina, pussyfooting around the subject of Cambridge because it will mean she can’t go with Julie to Thailand, even though Julie puts a lot of pressure on her to cave in. When it’s revealed that Jon has been unfaithful and had sex with Julie, Ms D’s devastation at the news and the realisation that everything she held dearest has been destroyed is tangible. Simply brilliant.

Nadia Parkes is also superb as Julie; exuding power and privilege, you really feel she’s deliberately courting lowlier types with her relationships with both Christina and Jon. Flighty, self-absorbed and loving to lead people astray, she also conveys that wafer-thin balance between self-confidence and mental illness; the kind of person who is both entertaining and terrifying to know.

Josh Finan is terrific as Jon; an equal partner for Christina, and a bit of rough for Julie, displaying the strong class difference that attracts them both to each other. Mr Finan has a marvellous sincerity that makes you believe unquestioningly everything he says, as though Jon were an open book with no hidden agenda.  Holly Race Roughan’s direction is tight and intimate despite the large acting area at her disposal, which is successfully sacrificed in the final scene to give an impression of cramped claustrophobia.

It’s a strong production with much to say which benefits from three stupendous performances. Despite any misgivings about the changes made to Strindberg’s original, it’s hugely entertaining and cleverly realised. Don’t buy the on-stage seats though.

4-starsFour They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – The Silence and the Noise, Pentabus Theatre Company Streaming Online, 11th December 2023

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Watching a play online may take us back to the miserable theatre-deprived days of the COVID pandemic, but one of the things that we did learn from that experience was how streaming digital theatre has a future beyond being simply a replacement for The Live Event. Tom Powell’s The Silence and the Noise originally toured the UK with English Touring Theatre in 2021/22, for which he won a Papatango Prize. He subsequently adapted it for film, and this production, shot entirely externally, premiered at the Vault Festival earlier this year and won two awards at the Broadstairs International Film Festival (Best Film and Best Actor) in November 2023. Having been re-released online it is now available for anyone to stream and watch for free – link at the bottom of the review!

Daize and BenBen and Daize are still both at school – but that’s where their comparative innocence ends. He’s a drug runner, at the beck and call of the never-seen Beetle, a man who runs his operation with brutal ruthlessness, who has no qualms about dishing out violent retribution against Ben if he makes any mistakes, and who controls Ben’s brain to the extent that Ben is convinced he has earned £11,000 for his work, but that Beetle is temporarily looking after it for him; hashtag #yeahright.

Ben and DaizeDaize meanwhile has a mother who is a drug addict; incapable of anything other than getting drug deliveries and administering it. There’s no one to care for Daize, who is reduced to living off cat food in the garden whilst still trying to do well at school. In an attempt to protect her mother and stop her from getting more drugs she arms herself with a knife to ward off any drug runner who tries to come near her – and that’s how she and Ben meet.

In troubleOver the next few weeks we see how their friendship grows, despite Daize’s disapproval of and contempt for Ben’s activities. She belittles him for being Beetle’s “little dog”, but when she sees the knife wounds on his chest caused by the angry and revengeful Beetle, she can’t help herself from doing that thing that takes us all back to our childhoods – she kisses it better. He says you have to learn from your mistakes, but does he? She issues an ultimatum for their continuing friendship – give the drug running up within the next month. But he’s trapped – can he break free from Beetle’s control? You’ll have to watch it to find out!

DaizeThis is an intense two-hander; with Ben and Daize constantly in each other’s company and sometimes very close camera work, it strongly gives you that sense that there is nowhere to hide. Tom Powell’s script pulls no punches with exploring the devastation that drugs can bring to everyone involved in the supply chain, but it’s done with an eloquent beauty and frequent poetic insights that help us place these two sad young people in the wider environment; both victims in their own way, and facing adult problems far in advance of their age, you do get occasional glimpses of the fact that they are just kids. Despite the wretched brutality of their existence, there is a gallows humour about it all too; it’s also heartwarming and – no spoilers – there is the suggestion of some cause for optimism at the end.

Rachelle DiedericksIt’s superbly performed by two of our best young actors. Rachelle Diedericks, whom I’m proud to say I first noticed five years ago as a brilliant young talent in The Band, and was a powerful Catherine in Headlong’s recent View from the Bridge, plays Daize with an excellent combination of terrified courage and helplessness, trying so hard to hang onto some elements of her youth in the face of true desperation. William RobinsonWilliam Robinson, fantastic in the RSC’s recent Julius Caesar, and giving a five-star performance as Darren in Bacon at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, excels as Ben, his confidence petering out with every setback and his vulnerability overwhelming his otherwise brash veneer.

TogetherPowerful and thought-provoking, The Silence and the Noise takes a serious subject and explores it seriously, whilst never losing sight of the youthfulness of our protagonists. And these two excellent performances will now never be lost as they are digitally preserved for ever! Highly recommended.

You can watch the play for free until March 2024 here.

Image credits: Luke Collins/Pentabus and Rural Media

4-starsFour They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – A View from the Bridge, Festival Theatre, Chichester, 14th October 2023

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You know that old joke about a play being so good, not even a gifted director could ruin it? Welcome to Headlong’s A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller, a co-production with Octagon Theatre, Bolton, Rose Theatre, Kingston and Chichester, where it’s currently playing at the Festival Theatre until 28th October. Miller’s grittily realistic play concerns New York longshoreman Eddie Carbone, a tough but kind-hearted cookie who loves and cares for his niece Catherine to the point of idolising her, trying to discourage her from taking a job because he can’t fact the fact that she’s growing up. He’s married to the long suffering Beatrice, whose two cousins Marco and Rodolfo have illegally immigrated from Italy and are living a quiet (ish), secret (ish) existence in Eddie’s apartment until they can procure either American citizenship or enough money to return home to Italy and raise a family there.

Marco is the kind of man that Eddie can admire; hard-working, silent, a provider for his family. Rodolfo, on the other hand, isn’t; and when Rodolfo and Catherine start to have a relationship, Eddie’s having none of it. And what’s the worst thing you could do to immigrants that you have helped enter the country illegally? Eddie’s fate is pure Greek tragedy; his downfall coming as a result of his own blind actions and misplaced love. One of the most powerful plays written in the 20th century, it’s insightful, emotional, agonising, heartbreaking and totally believable.

Consequently, it’s strong enough to withstand the stresses imposed on it by Holly Race Roughan’s highly stylised, fanciful production. Out goes Eddie and Beatrice’s usual basic accommodation – Miller’s stage directions describe it as a worker’s flat – clean, sparse, homely – to be replaced by a garish red neon sign that simply reads Red Hook – the name of the migrant enclave where all the Italian longshoremen lived; just in case you were to forget where the play was located, I guess. Out goes Eddie’s favourite old rocking chair and in comes a swing seat, suspended from way up high, as if the family were recreating their own version of Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s masterpiece.

In the bizarrest of all updatings, Elijah Holloway’s Louis frequently transforms himself into a ballet dancer, pirouetting nicely en pointe, drifting in and out of the action; but to no discernable purpose whatsoever. Six of us spent the weekend racking our brains trying to work out the intent behind the presence of the dancer; but nothing we thought of made sense. No criticism of Mr Holloway, but whenever he turned up I found it most rewarding simply to look away from him.

I’m normally flexible where it comes to gender-blindness in casting, but in this instance, the decision to cast Nancy Crane as Alfieri is, I think, a mistake. Again, nothing against Ms Crane, who delivers a strong performance as the lawyer, always on stage, acting the role of the Greek Chorus, constantly commenting on the action and the inevitability of its outcome. However, there’s no way that a man like Eddie Carbone would ever confide in a woman, lawyer or otherwise. The whole essence of the character is that he has a very set (old-fashioned) opinion about traditional gender roles. Men work; women keep house. Men socialise outside work; women look after babies. Eddie would never trust a woman with his deepest thoughts. He doesn’t even trust his wife or niece with those thoughts, let alone a female lawyer.

It also removes one of Miller’s carefully constructed male role-models. So much of the play is concerned with what it is to be a man; be it an unskilled labourer using his strength, or a creative artist using his talent, or an intelligent learned man using his brain, these are all ways in which a man can earn a living and provide for his family. Of course, this is not the case today, where making a living is equally applicable to both men and women. But in 1956 things were different.

Despite all these disruptions, antagonisms and distractions, Miller’s play still shines through and, in the second act particularly, arrests the audience with its riveting dialogue, growing suspense and undercurrent of violence. Much of this success is also due to the superb performances by all the members of the cast. Rachelle Diedericks’ Catherine quickly grows from a wide-eyed innocent girl into an independent young woman who knows her own mind and will not be diverted from her own wishes. Tommy Sim’aan is excellent as Marco, conciliatory at first as he tries to influence his brother into more discreet behaviour, but growing in anger as Eddie’s disrespect increases, until his fury is uncontainable. Luke Newberry gives a relatively subtle performance as Rodolfo, which keeps the audience guessing as to his true motivations for his relationship with Catherine. Nancy Crane makes for a calm and empathetic Alfieri, and there is good support from Elijah Holloway and Lamin Touray in the minor roles.

Jonathan Slinger gives a very fine performance as Eddie, his mental instability gradually growing as he can no longer keep his feelings of jealousy surrounding Catherine and scorn for Rodolfo to himself. It’s an excellent portrayal of a classic tragic hero, on an immutable course towards self-destruction. But perhaps the best performance of all is by Kirsty Bushell as Beatrice, agonisingly torn between her love for Eddie and being horrified at his behaviour, trying to do her best for everyone, no matter what it takes, and no matter what cost to herself.

A View from the Bridge has it all. The meaning of respect, loyalty, trust, and tradition; strength and bravery, assertion in one’s own beliefs; and love, in all its aspects and incarnations. What it doesn’t need are ballet dancers and swings.

 

4-starsFour They’re Jolly Good Fellows!

Review – The Band, Royal and Derngate, Northampton, 29th May 2018

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It was just over ten years ago that Mrs Chrisparkle and I went to see the Take That musical Never Forget at the Milton Keynes Theatre. Mrs C has always been a TT aficionado, and I’d always quite liked their songs, so we went along. The show was as dull as ditchwater, with a lousy book; and although the performances were good, the show never ignited until the last ten minutes, when the post-curtain call cast abandoned all the storyline pretences and just did a few songs as a Take That Tribute Act – and they were brilliant.

The Band – the new musical based on the songs of Take That, and whose creation TV audiences partly saw with the series Let It Shine to choose the boys who would be in the band – is almost the exact opposite of Never Forget. That dull, poorly written show has been replaced by a feelgood, funny and charming tale of five 16 year old girls in 1992, fantasising about meeting their boyband heroes at a gig, and their adult counterparts 25 years later. Rather than giving us a Take That tribute act, the five boys of Five to Five, the winning group on the TV show, simply become a typical boyband of their own. There’s no point trying to identify which of the guys is Gary, or Robbie, or Jason (or Mark, or Howard…. sorry, Mrs C’s enthusiasm has rubbed off on me a little) because they’re not presented that way. And that, in my humble opinion, is both a strength and a weakness of this new show. Strength – in that it allows the boys and the show to acquire their own unique identities. Weakness – well, if you’re expecting 2 and a half hours of Take That-ery, you’ll be disappointed.

Of course, the TV show is now fifteen months in the past, and we couldn’t for the life of us remember any of the winning competitors. All that original pizzazz of the show has gone into making pre-tour sales an enormous success – allegedly this is the biggest selling show in advance of press night ever – but not into making celebrities of the guys involved. I realised a few minutes before heading out to the theatre that, apart from knowing it had Take That music in it, I knew precious little about anything else to do with the show. The head of steam built up by the TV programme has long gone cold. As a result, the show, and especially the boys, have to win you over perhaps a little more than if this was just any old musical based on a pop group’s output (and let’s face it, there are plenty of those to choose from). And if you’re expecting a high impact start from the guys – well think again.The five boys don’t instantly hit the ground running with a perfect Take That tribute show – in fact, when they first come on stage they crawl out of various parts of young Rachel’s bedroom, giving me a slightly disturbing memory of Helen Reddy’s Angie Baby, if you’re old enough to remember that. That slowish start, not helped by some first night teething troubles, some murky sounds, underpowered microphones for the boys singing and a missed cue from the understudy playing the fifth member of the band, meant that I thought the first twenty minutes or so of the show was, shall we say, a bit scruffy around the edges.

But at some point, everything clicked into place and I ended up enjoying this way more than I expected. It’s actually a very well written and funny show, heavy on pathos but never maudlin, about middle-aged people coming to terms with who they are, especially in comparison with their hopes and their dreams when they were teenagers. It also plays very nicely on the potential double meanings of the word Band. It is, perhaps, not totally original in its concepts; there’s something of the Shirley Valentine about the character of Rachel, who always dreamed of being married but has never been walked down the aisle, even though she’s partnered up with the unimaginative but well-meaning Geoff. When she breaks free from his ideas of how to spend thePrague holiday that she won in a radio competition, and confesses she wants to go with her old schoolmates instead of him and their friends, he can’t grasp it. But she can, and the audience can, and when she turns up at the airport she gets a spontaneous round of applause for her character’s assertiveness. There’s also something of the Mamma Mia about the four forty-somethings behaving badly around Prague, to the sound of classic poptastic hits. There’s even a nod to Joe Orton with the unfortunate scandal of the damaged statue in Prague meeting the same fate as that of Winston Churchill in What The Butler Saw.

Personally, I found it unbelievable that the four friends had never been in contact since they were 16. Even as far back as the mid-1990s, there were millions of people subscribed to Friends Reunited. With all the juicy scandals in their past – you’ll have to watch the show to find out what they are – there’s no way that all could have been kept a secret from each other. But it is without question their bond that is the unifying structure of the show – and not the boyband, perhaps surprisingly. In fact, the boys only take centre stage on a few occasions. Most of the time, they represent their own musical earworm; appearing as flight attendants or ground crew; shop salesmen, bus passengers, or even the statues in a Prague fountain.They are background characters, reflecting the ever-present nature of your favourite group that lives in your head and every so often gives you an unexpected performance of their music. They are a benign, reassuring presence; but distinctly in the background, rather like an old-fashioned chorus in a musical. It’s vital for the structure of the show for the girls and the boys never to meet, for otherwise their imaginary presence in the girls’ lives would become real and all those fantasies would be shattered.

Musically, it’s a strong show. It’s fascinating to see how well the Take That songs blend into the story-telling; it’s a very natural mix, and surprising just how “show tunes” many of their songs are. John Donovan’s backing musicians provide a great sound and the cast – the younger girls, the older girls, and the boys, all sing really well – in fact, the ladies’ harmonies are pretty spectacular. A couple of the boys – AJ and Curtis – truly excel at dancing too. Hats off to Harry Brown for taking over from the indisposed Yazdan Qafouri as the fifth member of the group.

There’s something about Rachel Lumberg that makes you just love her on stage. We’ve seen her a couple of times in Sheffield in The Full Monty and This is My Family (also written by Tim Firth, I notice) and she never fails to delight. She has such a warm and honest onstage persona that you really feel she’s confiding just in you. It’s a beautiful performance and Tuesday night’s audience absolutely adored her. There’s also a wonderfully funny and emotional performance from Alison Fitzjohn as Claire, and spirited performances from Emily Joyce as Heather and Jayne McKenna as Zoe. Amongst the 16-year-old girls’ cast, Katy Clayton stands out with her funny and attitudinal performance as young Heather, and Rachelle Diedericks as the kind and tragic young Debbie. There are also some scene-stealing moments from Andy Williams (not THE Andy Williams) as Every Other Male Role which he tackles with a great sense of fun. But everyone turns in a great performance and helps make the show a success.

I had few expectations of this show – and was really very pleasantly surprised. There were plenty of TT fans in the audience, who all did the dance gestures along with the cast but it never became so immersive an experience that they forgot they were at the theatre. This is more than mere hen party fodder, more than just a piece of bubblegum pap; the show has interesting things to say about the nature of friendships, fandom, and learning how to let go of your past. A charming story beautifully told. The show has already been touring since last autumn and has almost another year still to go, so there are still plenty of opportunities to catch it. If you think you might like it, you almost certainly will. If you think you won’t, then you may be quite surprised. Worth a punt!