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A talented trio of performers fight admirably to rescue this saccharine and sentimental musical adaptation of Jack Heifner’s 1970s off-Broadway play about three girls from small-town Texas.
The story follows a familiar coming-of-age path. We first meet our protagonists as high school cheerleaders in the early ’60s, when getting married and joining a country club is their idea of a life well lived. But as they grow into college girls, career women, mothers and divorcees, the dynamic shifts as they gradually wake up from the American dream.
Lauren Samuels, Lizzy Connolly and Ashleigh Gray share an impressive list of West End credits between them and it shows, as they fill the tiny confines of Trafalgar 2 with tight harmonies. It’s just a pity David Kirshenbaum’s score is so insipid – those delivering it deserve better.
Racky Plews’s production squeezes a few decent laughs from Heifner’s mostly tame book, though the pace lags during the cumbersome scene and costume changes. The rather overblown design doesn’t help matters – three sets of shower cubicles and dressing tables doesn’t leave the company much space to play with.
This is frothy, throwaway fare. Artistic reservations aside, however, there’s something undeniably comforting about spending two hours in a world of pom-poms, sororities and kitsch. By the end the dogged likability of the whole thing is hard to resist, with the hillbilly accents and dodgy wigs only adding to the charm. If ‘stagey’ is a word you understand and identity with, this could be the evening for you.
BY: THEO BOSANQUET