Girls – New Diorama Theatre, London

Creator: The PappyShow

Director: Josie Daxter

First seen as part of the Incoming Festival in 2019, The PappyShow’s Girlsopens at the New Diorama with a new cast, new creative team, new material and a new director. Lest this make sound like some sort of theatrical Ship of Theseus, the concept is unchanged: taking the cast’s stories and lived experience, and mixing them into a variety of sketches, provocations and dance.

While the cast mill around on stage prior to the show’s commencement, the introductions proper begin with the seven women on stage describing themselves as their childhood heroes, before taking it in turns to step forward and reveal something of themselves. Not all of the statements are true (one involving Piers Morgan in an uncompromising position is, one would hope, particularly fanciful) but enough clearly are that we begin to get an impression of the performers’ personalities.

What follows are vignettes of femininity, from the teenage simpering when the boy you fancy notices you, to looking at how ideas of body shaming and beauty can lead one to extremes (leading to cast member Sam Hardie wrapping her torso in a cling-film corset). A memory game of “thing the grown-ups told us to look out
for” reveals a mix of feminine priority and warnings against male behaviour, highlighting how acceptance of sexism and misogyny become ingrained into women’s psyches from an early age. That also seeps through into a segment on preparations to go out, as men are far less likely to need to consider where they walk, having a key available to hold in their fist as a defensive weapon, and so on.

But it is not all serious by any means. Kim Tatum delivers a raucously powerful rendition of Chicago’s When You’re Good to Mama, and several pieces turn into dance sequences (most often led by the formidable talent of Jamie Randall).

And then there are the sequences which combine all sorts of moods – a pair of sketches between Saida Ahmed and Bea Holland about fertility issues highlights how some women’s desire and/or ability to have children can seem like open season for other people’s opinions, but uses good humour to ensure that the show never descends into preachiness.

Sometimes, the transition between sequences could be more effective, especially at the end of some of the dance sequences. But that does not detract too much from the power of what went before, or comes after.
And there are two segments in particular which stick in the mind. In the first, Seda Yildiz begins to introduce the next section of the evening, but cannot bring herself to; after standing for some time, she beings to pace, then to roar, caged by some unspoken trauma that will doubtless resonate in different ways for each audience member.

And most impactful of all, Ahmed delivers a poem that envisages a world where ableism, racism, sexism and all other sorts of denigrations are wiped out at a stroke. The simplicity of the statements – that as of tomorrow, they will not exist – invites us to ask the question: what’s stopping us?

And it is this combination of fun visuals and their use to inspire and empower that makes Girlssuch a delicious watch. If the show can continue to redefine itself with new influxes of cast members, there is no reason why it shouldn’t have a long, deserved life outside of this run.

Reviewed on 21 August 2021