FANGIRLS: A HOT NEW MUSICAL REMINDING US TO LIVE WHILE WE’RE YOUNG

By Kelly Jackson | @kellyjackson88 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Press Invite

Everyone remembers their first celebrity crush (I’m going to show my age and admit mine was a Backstreet Boy). When you are in your teens, it’s hard to imagine anything more all-encompassing and soul-destroying than the unrequited love for a heartthrob.

Fangirls, across the course of a 2 hour and 5 minute run time, weaves an incredible story of love, hope, and ultimately, loss, that will resonate with every single human on the planet. The protagonist, Edna, is a character you can’t help but identify with, even if her morals are at some points questionable. Jasmine Elcock, who plays her, manages to strike a balance between endearing and frustrating, giving her character the nuance that is sometimes lacking in musicals.

She and her less-than-loyal friends share a bond made over Harry, the enigmatic member of True Connection, a boy band formed on a national reality show (sound familiar?). The creator, Yve Blake, cites Zayn leaving One Direction as an inspiration for the piece, and although there are many nods towards them and the X Factor in the show, it forms a unique identity through the songs and razor-sharp humour.  

There are a lot of laugh-out-loud one-liners in Fangirls, even during the second act when the storyline takes a bit of a darkly dramatic turn and the songs are not only catchy enough for you to still sing them after, but as musicals go, they are quite modern, and exactly the type of songs you can imagine Gen Z bursting into if they were that way inclined. The choreography is flawless, and the bright and energetic staging and production compliment the content perfectly. 

On the surface, Fangirls is a story about how far one teenage girl is willing to go to meet Harry, the object of her affection and obsession, but underneath it is so much more. What Yve Blake does so well to describe is the way the characters use Harry and True Connection to form a community and escape the stressful things going on in their lives (divorce, keeping up with a scholarship, and the expectations of parents, to name a few). It also touches on how much life can change when you are hurtling from your teens into adulthood at a pace you can scarcely keep up with.  

Fangirls is a fun, energetic show that audiences of any age will find an electrifying ride.

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Photo Credit: Fangirls (c) a Lyric Hammersmith theatre and Sonia Friedman Productions co-production – Design by Greg Bunbury