Writer and Director: Mike Howl
Apart from Sam Taylor-Wood’s Nowhere Boy and Ian Softley’s Backbeat, the early lives of The Beatles are relatively unexplored in theatre and film. Mike Howl’s new play with original songs by Frankie Connor, Alan Crowley and Billy Kinsley approaches the John Lennon story from a different angle: from the perspective of his first wife, Cynthia. But the simplistic narrative and the reliance on 50s/60s music make This Girl seem like a Liverpudlian episode of Heartbeat.
Cynthia and John hang around in the same friend group which also includes Paul McCartney and Stuart Sutcliffe, the Beatle who died in 1962. Strangely no mention is ever made of George Harrison, Pete Best or Ringo Starr who replaced Best as the group’s drummer. When Cynthia gets pregnant, she and John, following the advice of manager Brian Epstein, marry secretly.
Nothing much else happens in the hour-long first half. There’s some bantering between the boys and some flirting between John and Cynthia but unfortunately there is little chemistry between actors Marky Ready and Emily Guilfoyle. The rest of the time is devoted to music; some classic tracks like Blue Suede Shoes are mixed up with the inoffensive new songs. Of course, copyrights prevent any Beatles’ songs from being performed.
So slow are proceedings that Yoko Ono’s arrival is looked forward to with some glee. Surely, she will bring the drama. Yoko kind of appears but adds no excitement to the growing love triangle. Lennon is portrayed so unfavourably in This Girl that it’s hard to understand what Cynthia sees in him. He’s depicted as a wife-beater, a drug-pusher, a philanderer and even appears to have a hand in Sutcliffe’s sudden death.
For Howl, Cynthia Lennon’s life is only defined by the men she is with and we see nothing of her professional life. She owned restaurants, wrote books and was an artist, but we only see her mooning over Lennon and the past. Her character here has so little depth that it’s hard to see her as a real person. The leaden dialogue and the basic lyrics of the songs make her seem one-dimensional. Only in the title song is Guilfoyle allowed to show any emotion.
A large cast – not much multi-roling here – tries its best to inject some life into this musical, but the script and the many entrances and exits drain the energy from the show. There’s a story to be told about Cynthia Lennon, but this isn’t it quite yet.
Runs until 2 August 2023
Camden Fringe runs until 27 August 2023
