Fangirls. Book, music & lyrics by Yve Blake. The Lyric, King Street, Hammersmith, London WC to 24 August 2024.

4✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

“Bursting with energy throughout.”

Garlanded with awards this Australian musical about the world of teenage girls besotted with the boy leads in boy bands is bursting with energy, gets terrific performances especially from Jasmine Elcock in her professional debut as Edna, the girl who decides to save her hero from his life trapped in his band. It is garish, packed with frantic dance routines, lurid back projections and swift scene changes done in blackout as Edna and her friends plan how to get tickets for Harry’s next concert, chat in the privacy of their bedroom, that haven Mum is not allowed in to, go, and then Edna acts. She kidnaps Harry. It is not as deep a look at the world of the teenage girl as it might have been but this, after all, a musical and on that level it delivers. Maybe it cops out towards the end – landed with hostage you no longer need the logical way out is to kill him but again this is a musical. Harry lives to sing another day and so do Edna and her friends. The evening had the audience on its feet, joining in on what is happening on stage as if they were part of the concert Harry and his band stage, and as a night out the result is hard to fault. Edna squabbles with her friend Brianna (Miracle Chance) and her frenemy Jules (Mary Malone), and battles with Caroline, her single parent mother, overworked and struggling to understand what her daughter is up to – Debby Kurup on top form – while over it all looks that boy band, Heartbreak Nation and its boy star Harry – a stylish, so to speak, performance from Thomas Grant – who is perfectly happy where he is and has no desire to be saved by anybody. There are some problems with the structure – the concert that opens act two seems hardly necessary – and the deeper issues get sabotaged time and again by the jokes but the sheer energy of the show is totally disarming. It deserves to pack the house to the end of the run and after that – well it deserves to survive at least for as long as the cast can keep the energy level up. It allegedly takes place in Sydney but Austrlian accents seem thin on the ground and anyway the problem of teenage infatuation is world wide.

Cast

Miracle Chance – Brianna.

Jasmine Elcock – Edna.

Max Gill – Greta.

Thomas Grant – Harry.

Max James Hodge – Pat.

Terique Jarrett –Salty.

Debbie Kurup – Caroline.

Mary Malone – Jules.

Gracie McGonigal –Lily.

Eve De Leon Allen – Dom.

Lena Pattie Jones – Ash.

Nicky Wong Rush – Odette.

Creatives

Director -Paige Rattray.

Production Design – David Fletcher.

Choreography – Ebony Williams.

Musical Supervisor – Zara Stanton.

Video Design - Ash J Woodward.

Sound Design – Tony Gayle.

Lighting Design – Jessica Hung Han Yun.

Musical Direction – Candid Caldicot.