'Fangirls' review — Yve Blake's smart new musical is a celebration of young female expression

Read our review of Yve Blake's Fangirls, directed by Paige Rattray, now in performances at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre to 24 August.

Have you ever loved someone so much you thought you’d die if they looked at you? What would happen if that person actually spoke to you and knew your name? Would your heart explode? Sensational rising star Yve Blake answers all these questions and more in the UK premiere of her musical Fangirls, which explores the power of female fandoms — and warns audiences to underestimate them at their peril.

The musical was created in the wake of Zayn Malik splitting from boy band One Direction in 2015. In the nine years since then, Fangirls has enjoyed success in Blake’s native Australia, premiering in 2019, with a national tour in 2021 and a run at Sydney Opera House in 2022, scooping up awards along the way. Now it opens at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre with a bigger cast and even bigger potential.

Fourteen-year-old Edna is battling all the issues associated with being a teenager: she has a tricky relationship with her mother, there’s a lot of pressure on her shoulders as a scholarship kid at a private school, and her friends are dealing with their own problems. One person who lights up her world like nobody else is Harry: the lead singer of boy band Heartbreak Nation (previously named True Connection in the Australian production, in a very deliberate nod to the show’s roots). But when Edna misses out on a golden ticket to see Harry perform in Sydney, she takes matters into her own hands to meet the boy of her dreams.

Fans of Heathers and SIX should swarm to this musical about teenagers, which unashamedly targets a young audience. Indeed, on press night, critics were encouraged to bring along a teenager in their life to make the most of the show’s pop-concert atmosphere. But this does not mean the show cannot be enjoyed by older fans. The occasional joke or cultural reference may draw blank faces from boomers, Gen Xers, and even some millennials, but the fierce passion of youth is something everyone can identify with. For two hours and 30 minutes, you feel like a teenager again.

Director Paige Rattray and choreographer to the stars (Beyoncé and Doja Cat among them) Ebony Williams impressively steer this young, hard-working cast to success, with tight scenes, slick transitions, and complex, energetic dance routines that genuinely feel like they’re straight out of a pop concert. The pace of the production fluctuates just like the highs and lows of teenage emotions, with a lively Act I followed by a darker Act II, which causes the energy to dip ever so slightly.

Several cast members are making their professional and/or musical theatre debuts, and among them is Jasmine Elcock, who gives an assured performance as Edna, delivering powerhouse vocals in solo numbers such as “Learning to be Lonely”. Her leading man, Thomas Grant, oozes pop star dreaminess as Harry, with chronic hair-flicking and multiple affectations, stroking his neck in the opening number “Let Them” and fixing the audience with suggestive, lingering stares.

Terique Jarrett brings plenty of camp charisma to Edna’s ‘fan fic’ internet friend Salty, while Miracle Chance and Mary Malone are entertaining as Edna’s best friends Brianna and Jules. Malone, in particular, portrays a realistic image of what it means to be a teenager, constantly striving to appear older than you are, whether that be embarking on fad diets (“I don’t do gluten anymore”) or pretending you know how to date (“It’s called playing the long game”).

Ensemble member Gracie McGonigal (as Lily) also deserves special mention for her spiralling vocal riffs. She’s particularly funny at the top of “Actually Dead”, when Ash J Woodward’s smart video design projects every tiny, pained facial expression after she learns that tickets to Harry’s concert cost an extortionate AU$139.95.

There are more poignant moments in the show too, from the impact of a broken marriage on Jules to the dangers of social media trends that lead young people to self-harm. Crucially, Blake makes a much larger point about the representation of young female fans in the media as ‘hysterical’ and ‘psychotic’, using Andrew Tate-style video footage of two chat show hosts to convey this entrenched negativity. But she balances all of this perfectly, so that Fangirls remains, at its heart, a celebration of young female expression.

Book Fangirls tickets on London Theatre.

Photo credit: Fangirls at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. (Photo by Manuel Harlan)