Fangirls London Reviews

"A joyful celebration of the euphoria and misery of being a teenage girl"

"Combining the acid wit of ‘Six’, the rebel streak of ‘Matilda‘ and the gooey heart of ‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’, Yve Blake’s new musical will inspire outsized feelings and ardent devotion"

"This is Fangirls, a new musical about the euphoria and misery of being a teenage girl with an obsession. Aptly, then, it’s the kind of show that inspires outsized feelings and ardent devotion. In the words of the fangirls, it left me “actually dead”."

"The result combines the acid wit ofSix, the rebel streak of Matilda and the gooey heart of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie in order to create a musical that feels unlike anything else."

"The poignancy is in Edna’s clearly – but not that clear to her – parallel feelings of being lost and alone... But alongside all of this is a raucous comedy that perfectly captures the hyperbole and bluntness of internet parlance."

"It must be fun to perform in a show this joyful and smart, and the cast are pure pleasure."

"... this celebration of vulnerability, bravery and self-acceptance will win you over for something more. Fangirls doesn’t just evoke the untamed inner life of being a teen, it reclaims it – making you wistful for when you felt things so deeply that they actually hurt."

"Fandom and fantasy in a fantastic new musical"

"A trio of teenage girls have all the growing pains of modern adolescence, including a pop-star heart-throb"

"The plot is highly unlikely, epically silly and has more holes in it than a fashionably distressed pair of jeans, while some of the problems the show raises — such as the cynicism of the music marketing machine — could do with much deeper interrogation. But it still walks a tightrope between send-up and sincerity skilfully, dialling emotions up to the max while honouring how painful they feel for the protagonists."

"Paige Rattray’s production likewise is wittily pumped up: one of the ironic highlights is the number “Actually Dead” in which the fabulous young cast blaze their way through Ebony Williams’s vigorous, snappy choreography while singing “Oh my God I’m actually dead!” But at its core is a sympathy for the disorientation and despair that can cloud teenage years, sometimes seriously."

"The terrific new British cast is peppered with talent... Jasmine Elcock’s excellent Edna, who combines a glorious voice with a believable blend of truculence and naivety. And let’s hear it for Debbie Kurup as the long-suffering Mum, who finally makes Harry’s signature lyric — “Nobody loves you like me” — her own."

"Kooky homage to the culture of superfans"

"Yve Blake’s defiantly poptastic, tongue-in-cheek musical serves justice to teenage fangirls"

"Yve Blake’s defiantly poptastic, tongue-in-cheek musical, directed by Paige Rattray, is as much a validation of the teen-girl experience as a kooky homage to the culture of superfans, for whom a band’s break-up can feel akin to grief. It gently pokes fun at its archetypal characters, but validates their feelings too."

"David Fleischer’s design nods to an arena, with flashing spotlights, a smoke machine and a bubblegum-coloured backdrop. Thomas Grant’s Harry, shyer than your average boy-band hero figure, doesn’t quite commandeer it, but his self-effacing attitude suits Edna’s suspicion that he has “depression eyes”. Elcock’s Edna is every deeply empathetic, relatable teen girl and a great lead for the narrative. Embodying the squealy, overdramatic behaviour of which fangirls are accused is Gracie McGonigal’s song-stealing Lily, whose soaring vocals could genuinely front a band."

"There’s nothing else in London theatres like Fangirls"

"Yve Blake’s musical is a campy, impassioned defence of anyone who’s been made to feel like their feelings are 'too much'"

"On paper, Fangirls, Yve Blake’s musical about the teenage fangirls obsessed with Harry (Thomas Grant) of fictional British boy band Heartbreak Nation, is made for former fans like me. Yet the show doesn’t discriminate; it’s a campy, impassioned defence of anyone who’s been made to feel like their feelings are “too much”."

"The “too much”-ness is worn on the show’s sequin-bedazzled sleeve. Not everything works perfectly, but trust me: there’s nothing in London’s theatre scene like it."

"Edna starts off stroppy and a little unlikeable, and by the surreal second act has become, frankly, deranged. Yet recent graduate Elcock has a stage presence and likeability that makes it hard not to root for her. If there is another stand out among the multi-talented, multi-roling ensemble cast, it’s Mary Marone as Edna’s sometime-best friend Jules, a gawking, strutting comedic creation with notes of Ja’mie: Private School Girl."

"You don’t need to have been a fangirl to find those depths in the show, but tapping into your inner teenage obsessive will only elevate this impressive, bombastic production."

"Raucous Aussie musical is a bittersweet celebration of fandom"

"The hit show from Australia raises sharp and sensitive observations, but never quite transcends its own daft plot"

"Teenage hormones run hot and heavy through this rambunctious Australian musical, which is by turns very smart and very, very silly. Written by Yve Blake, Fangirls both mocks and celebrates the obsessive passions teenage girls conceive for members of boybands, which have been assembled to generate precisely that reaction."

"The show hangs sharp and sensitive observations, punchy songs and robust Antipodean wit on a plot that, as a late lyric suggests, is “so fake it was just embarrassing”. Unlike Six, with which it shares a raucous, yass-kween feminism, Fangirls doesn’t quite transcend its innate daftness."

"The tone is wryly compassionate but never mawkish: Jules (Mary Malone, hilarious) is a bitch because her divorcing parents are trying to buy her affection; Brianna (Miracle Chance, winningly ditzy) is concerned about her mismatched boobs."

"The dancing is dynamic, the singing largely good, the design a pulsating mix of music-video graphics and deranged close ups projected onto three curved screens. But the veil of kookiness covering a thin, derivative plot really bugged me."

"This barmy account of pop obsession is glib but superbly executed"

"The hit Australian musical is a fun defence of teenage girl fandoms – but it ticks off Gen Z afflictions in a way that feels formulaic"

"If you’ve ever known the unhinged ecstasy of teenage girl pop fandom, not to mention the weirdly compulsive loneliness of a crush nursed from within the four walls of your own bedroom, this hit Australian musical is here to bottle those feelings for you in two-and-a-half hours of self-ironising, music-fuelled delirium. It’s a manifesto of sorts: a knowingly arch, adrenalised defence of the young female fan whose half-crazed identification with their idol is a much derided phenomenon throughout pop history. Don’t, though, go expecting much by way of argument: one thing Fangirls isn’t interested in is subtlety."

"Stylish boy band musical with an exceptional cast"

"Already a hit in Australia, the kooky Sonia Friedman show about a teen who kidnaps her idol comes to the Lyric Hammersmith with a bang"

"Sorry to sound like a retired High Court judge but if I had a 14-year-old daughter, would I really want to take her to this cult teen musical? On the one hand, Yve Blake’s raucous tale — an Australian hit that’s been brought to London by that savvy impresario Sonia Friedman — argues that girls who develop a crush on pop stars are unfairly mocked as victims of hormones and a form of mental illness. Yet the script — said to have been inspired by the emotional turmoil unleashed by Zayn Malik’s departure from One Direction — spends most of the evening milking laughs from precisely that proposition"

"What keeps the doubts at bay, at least for the first half of the show, briskly directed by Paige Rattray, is the exceptional quality of the performances."

"Sugar rush musical turns a teen crush criminal"

"An infatuated teenager’s fantasy of saving a star from his fame clashes with the reality of frenemies and family frictions in an operatic plot"

"Remember how, long before the intensity of first love, there was the juggernaut force of the first crush? This musical comedy from Australia takes that chest-squeezing feeling and magnifies it to the power of 100 in this glittery, garish, girl-fantasy pop concert of a show."

"All together, it is a lot. Directed by Paige Rattray, the production has an amped up concert sound and feel."

"The best of the songs by Yve Blake (who also wrote the book) capture the fever and sugar-rush of teen infatuation – as in Nobody and Actually Dead – and there are funny refrains from the ensemble around sweaty palmed awkwardness all the way through."

"Elcock, who recently graduated from drama school, gives a fabulous performance, and the cast’s voices meet the sometimes difficult range of the songs. Gracie McGonigal, who plays schoolgirl Lily, excels with superbly arch harmonising."

"Brianna and Jules are too arch and clownish to reveal anything of their inner worlds while Edna’s soul-searching gives way to plot, which is fun and glittery, but the musical goes from what might have been a penetrating exploration of young femininity to an absurdist comedy caper which never quite captures the quietly tortured ache of that first crush."

"... you can feel the high expectations of the audience for Fangirls even before it begins"

"There are all sorts of neat touches and nice jokes. Still, for all the video-screen pizazz of Paige Rattray’s staging, the first hour is really just set-up. By the interval I was longing for something to happen."

"Instead it all goes electropop Misery, and teens pointedly sing out against the chauvinistic double standards around their obsession — a theme that barely appears in the show. Songs that might sting in the right context feel parachuted-in and bogus (yet seem to go down a storm). From a slow but likeable start, Fangirls skews the argument and loses the plot."

"In a hit Australian musical, screaming is the point"

"Given the ecstatic reception of Fangirls on press night, I am likely to be in a minority in failing to describe myself as a fan."

"The aim of the writer (also lyricist and composer) Yve Blake is to explore how fandom helps girls find – and lose – themselves. Valid though the idea is, it’s a big ask to expect it to support an entire show filled with bland pop and a shriekathon from the girls themselves."

"It does, though, have a cracking cast."

"Jasmine Elcock makes a remarkable and heartfelt debut as Edna, the 14-year-old who attempts to turn her fantasies into reality (be careful what you wish for – importing your hero into your schoolgirl bedroom might not go according to plan). But in trying to understand teenage girls, the show tilts towards patronising them."

"This Australian musical about pop standom gone too far is more Matt Cardle than One Direction"

"A musical about obsessive online fandoms is a brilliant idea. But I’m sorry to report this hit Australian show – largely the brainchild of writer, songwriter and original star Yve Blake – is very much Not It."

"It is neither a fast-paced, laugh a minute dark comedy nor a serious interrogation of obsession fandoms. Instead it dabbles in high school drama clichés and mixes jokey bits and earnest bits to muddled effect."

"Blake’s book and lyrics aren’t deep, but a better director of comedy could surely have made them a lot funnier."

"‘Fangirls’ has its moments and might even be pretty great if it was totally redirected. But ultimately it feels like a missed opportunity - more Matt Cardle than One Direction."