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Synopsis Set in the fictional H.M.P. Larkhall, it’s the story of new idealistic wing governor Helen Stewart and her battles with the entrenched old guard of officer Jim Fenner and his sidekick Sylvia 'Bodybag' Hollamby. It also follows the love story that develops between Helen and charismatic inmate Nikki Wade. Other featured characters include Shell Dockley and her runner Denny Blood, old-timer Noreen Biggs, the two Julies and the ultimate top dog, king-of-gangland’s missus, Yvonne Atkins. A tragic death on the wing - in which Jim Fenner is implicated - leads to an angry protest from the women and forces Helen and Nikki to their opposite sides of the bars. But when it’s clear that Helen stands to lose her job over Jim Fenner's misdeeds, the race is on for the women to nail Jim once and for all.
Bad Girls - The Musical, the stage adaptation of the long-running ITV drama of the same name, received its West End premiere this week at the Garrick Theatre, facing the critics on Wednesday 12 September 2007 (previews from 16 August) followed by a star-studded opening gala last night (See Today’s WOS TV).
The television drama, set in the fictional HMP Larkhall, ran on ITV for eight series from 1999 to 2006. The musical, written by the creators of the television series and first seen in July 2006 at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, is based around some of the core characters from season one.
In it, idealistic new Wing Governor Helen Stewart tries to make improvements on G Wing, but old guard officers, including Jim Fenner and his sidekick Sylvia Hollamby, stand in her way. A death on the ward leads to an angry protest which also forces Stewart and her love interest inmate Nikki Wade onto their opposite sides of the bars. Other featured inmate characters include Shell Dockley and her runner Denny Blood, the Two Julies, and the top dog and missus to the king of gangland, Yvonne Atkins.
Bad Girls - The Musical has a book by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus with music and lyrics by Kath Gotts. Its songs include “All Banged Up”, “Jailcraft”, “The A-List”, “One Moment”, “The Baddest and the Best” and “Freedom Road”. The production is directed by Maggie Norris, who also helmed it in Leeds, and designed by Colin Richmond, with lighting by Tim Mitchell, orchestrations by Martin Koch and choreography by Anne Yee.
Although not invited to be part of the usual first-night glitz, the critics’ praise today suggests they weren’t bitter. Although acknowledging that Bad Girls - The Musical didn’t contain material of too much depth, all remarked upon the show’s “entertaining” qualities and its ability to switch “between gritty melodrama and gaudy glitter” in a style not unlike Billy Elliot. What’s more, as the Evening Standard’s Nicholas De Jongh points out, it is indeed “the first lesbian musical” in the West End, and its overdue arrival as such should be applauded.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (three stars) - “Bad Girls - The Musical represents a serious and fairly entertaining attempt to draw our attention to the iniquities of a prison system which ‘bangs up’ women who shouldn’t be there and subjects them to abuse and humiliation from the staff who despise them. This makes the show sound grimmer than it is … The authors Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus may not have re-written the history of musical theatre, but they have produced a tight, taut show full of human spirit … Kath Gotts’ music is serviceable rather than inspired – with Willy Russell on board this could have been a new Blood Brothers – and, as in all ‘working class’ British musicals from Billy to Billy Elliot, there are slightly cringe-inducing break-outs into glitter balls, chorus lines and high kicks. But ‘A Life of Grime’ and ‘All Banged Up’ are terrific numbers, brilliantly executed by Julie Jupp, Rebecca Wheatley and Sally Dexter, and Maggie Norris’ vibrant production roars on to a life-enhancing finale.”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (three stars) – “It’s overheavy to report that there’s rather a lot of political correctness here and too little recognition that some women do things evil enough to merit imprisonment. It’s probably also misguided to say that, compared with Chicago, this show is more camp than sophisticated. Bad Girls aspires to be little more than reform-minded fun that comes complete with Colin Richmond’s atmospheric steel-and-silhouette sets and tunes composed by Kath Gotts that aren’t all that rich or hummable but are always lively and energetic. There’s a lament for sex – ‘We’re banged up without the bang’ – and even a Busby Berkeley spoof, with a dreamy David Burt leading a spangled chorus line of spruced-up prisoners. There’s also the excellent Sally Dexter as a gangster’s wife who unnerves the officers and reduces the prison toughs to jelly. I wish we had seen more of her before she scarpered with a protégé to Spain. I also wonder if their escape was such terrific news for British justice. But again, that’s overheavy.”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph - “Damn it all - it might not be Shaw, but it sure is a hell of a lot of fun. The TV programme began in gritty, grimy fashion, but became ever camper and more outlandish in its characters and plot lines, and in this musical stage version the collision between gritty melodrama and gaudy glitter is often spectacular. There can't be many musicals in which a terrified young woman hangs herself in her cell after being raped by a corrupt prison warder, only for the show to move speedily on to a Busby Berkeley-style dance routine with the entire company tap-dancing on an illuminated staircase. But there is something oddly exhilarating about the piece's shuddering lurches in mood, its tongue-in-cheek humour and its ferocious desire to entertain … The show's secret weapon, however, is Kath Gotts, who has written both music and lyrics, and strikes me as the brightest new prospect for British musical theatre in years … No one could accuse Bad Girls - The Musical of being great art. But for an entertaining night of salacious humour, strong songs and good old-fashioned melodrama, it's hard to beat and deserves to thrive.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (three stars) – “Despite the existence of Sing-Sing, a prison is not a natural setting for a musical … But, in turning this TV series into a musical, Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus (book) and Kath Gotts (music and lyrics) never seem sure whether the songs spring from external reality or internal dreams … The plot doesn't bear close scrutiny, and the constant need for a number yields all sorts of contradictions: after Fenner, played with smiling diabolism by the excellent David Burt, has been exposed as a villain, it is a bit rich to present him as an Astaire wannabe. Yet, though the piece is preposterous hokum, the show is put across with enormous zest. Sally Dexter as a mobster's wife has a Sophia Loren-like swagger, Laura Rogers as the do-gooding governor and Caroline Head as the cop-killer touchingly express their furtive passion, and Nicole Faraday, as Larkhall's head girl, puts across a country and western number with style. Even a prison musical, as Maggie Norris' energetic production proves, can be redeemed if delivered with suitable conviction.”
Nicholas de Jongh in the Evening Standard (three stars) - “I offer a warm welcome to Bad Girls, the first lesbian musical to hit the West End … Bad Girls now offers authentic pleasure to those of us who enjoy serious issues camped up to melodrama level … Film projections vividly set the prison scene in Maggie Norris' insufficiently flippant production. Kath Gotts' not very tuneful songs range from the unfunny, Lionel Bartish A Life of Grime by way of the odd anthem and pugilistic pop number, to the amusing, satirical spectacular: a chorus line of prison officers in a Busby Berkeley routine and an Astaire/Rogers tap-dancing duo. What with David Burt's sinister, smiling officer Jim Fenner, sexually taking advantage of his female charges, a suicide, a menacingly real riot and Yvonne's battle to become hen rather than cock of the walk, this ladies' wing of Larkhall prison makes a boisterous impression. The dialogue crackles and snaps convincingly with lush vulgarity, innuendo and violence … Bad Girls needs a touch more lesbian liberation. Despite a criminology professor's plaudits in the programme, Bad Girls offers no indictment of our primitive penal policy for women.”
First seen at the West Yorkshire Playhouse last summer, Bad Girls - The Musical represents a serious and fairly entertaining attempt to draw our attention to the iniquities of a prison system which “bangs up” women who shouldn’t be there and subjects them to abuse and humiliation from the staff who despise them.
This makes the show sound grimmer than it is, and doesn’t allow for the passing nod to genuine malefactors, arsonists, habitual shop-lifters and delinquents. But I think most of us believe that women are a much nicer lot than men and not often party to the horrors of organised crime or mass murders. Prostitution only exists because men create the market for it.
The authors Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus – they wrote the television series on which the show is based, as well as Footballers’ Wives – may not have re-written the history of musical theatre, but they have produced a tight, taut show full of human spirit, and rooted in the burgeoning friendship between Nikki (Caroline Head) who has killed a policeman who was raping her girlfriend, and Helen (Laura Rogers), a new officer on the block who “hopes to make a difference”.
Comparisons are odious, but there are similarities with both Chicago and The Beggar’s Opera, without the shiny slickness of the first or the distilled social anger of the second. Still, when Sally Dexter’s voluptuous Yvonne turns up in vertiginous stilettos and red leather – “Hi, girls; just popped in for a quick four years” - she galvanises the inmates like some transsexual Mack the Knife and the party mood (“We need glamour in our lives/ Out on the razz, like footballers’ wives”) swiftly turns to a riot.
That chaos is prompted by the tragic suicide of one of the new prisoners, Rachel (Emily Aston), after she has been compromised by David Burt’s lascivious prison officer, who operates as a licensed sex machine after lights out. Can such abuse really take place in our prisons? The behaviour is tacitly sanctioned by Michael Harbour’s frog-faced Number One and Helen Fraser’s radiant, chuckling female screw.
Kath Gotts’ music is serviceable rather than inspired – with Willy Russell on board this could have been a new Blood Brothers (what the heck is Willy Russelldoing by the way?) – and, as in all “working class” British musicals from Billy to Billy Elliot, there are slightly cringe-inducing break-outs into glitter balls, chorus lines and high kicks.
But “A Life of Grime” and “All Banged Up” are terrific numbers, brilliantly executed by Julie Jupp, Rebecca Wheatley and La Dexter, and Maggie Norris’ vibrant production roars on to a life-enhancing finale.
“I shouldn’t be here”: the cast of Bad Girls the Musical warns the audience and no they shouldn’t. How did a production with so many explicit, sexist references make it to London’s Garrick Theatre? The answer is- through the success of the ITV drama Bad Girls, on which it is based.
Set in the fictional HMP Larkhall women’s prison, the story follows inmates and guards- characters from the drama series. Guard Jim Fenner (David Burt) praying on the vulnerability of the inmates, like a lion, creeping upon his prey, eventually raping one (Rachel Hicks played by Emily Aston) who kills herself. The member of authority is fought against by the inmates, who eventually get him fired.
But the women use similarly underhand behaviour- recording equipment is literally thrown in from one of the boxes, (which is ridiculous), and he is tricked into admitting what he has done. This is problematic: are the creators (Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus) suggesting that the only way to fight such unjust behaviour is through being deceitful? The story is flawed from the outset: they could have created a gritty text but the cheesy grins and the overly used ‘jazz hands’ meant it couldn’t work!
Chadwick and McManus suggest that prisons are filled with sex crazed, drug addicts. The show is riddled with stereotypes- Nicky Wade (Caroline Head) the lesbian, Yvonne Atkins (Sally Dexter) the sex crazed, sings “I want some action inside my pants”, similar to Fenner’s justification for the rape as he sings “ever slut, every slag, ever shag’s in the bag”, the writing (songs by Kath Gotts) is crude, brash and offensive to women; especially considering the songs and script were by three women.
The staging was also at times, ridiculous. Although Fenner is a rapist- the second half begins with Burt performing a routine reminiscent of ‘Beauty School Drop Out’ from Grease: he wears a top hat, and sings whilst walking down a flight of stairs, framed by a glitter back drop, the ensemble of 10 women gyrate around him as though he is a rock star, not a prison guard, and certainly not a rapist.
The set (Colin Richmond) it self is simple, cold even, but a little too bland- with the occasional appearance of corrugated iron doors wheeled in by guards, or an iron panel with two urinals attached. Scenes occur with Fenner and the number one (Michael N. Harbour), whilst they were going to the toilet- a technique which makes the words inaudible.
The production borrows what has been successful elsewhere: urinal’s work in television shows because characters can be secretive whilst viewers can see characters faces. Similarly the ‘Beauty school drop out’ number works, in Grease because of the character that is singing. Even Chicago works; because the women choose to be sexual as opposed to being forced upon them by members of authority. Bad Girls the Musical is stereotyped, poorly written and clearly borrows from other productions, so the possible talent of its cast, cannot be seen.
- Aimee
08 Nov 07
I was surprised what fun this musical is with a superb cast and Sally Dexter in particular is worth the price of the ticket alone and really goes over the top in her role. The projected scenery is great too and is something I have not seen bettered anywhere on the stage. The only down side to the evening was the constant munching and rustling of food packaging throughout the first half. I really wish theatre management would ban food from the auditorium especially when some of these people are troughing constantly. - Ivor
01 Nov 07
The previous comment is unintelligible - what is he on about? We saw it 2 weeks ago, it was great, and (as far as I know) no-one hid behind some mantle of secrecy!This show, as well as being superb entertainment, seems to cause strange reactions in those who cant handle drama beyond lonely goatherds and chimney-sweeps! - Timmo
08 Oct 07
The entire cast and production team should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Particularly the ones below who are shamelessly plugging their own tasteless, amoral show under pseudonyms. Take a hint guys - this show stinks. - Ned S
06 Oct 07
As a regular theatre go-er, not only watching plays but musicals as well, I can honestly say that I thought it was fabulous. It's not Macbeth but it is a truely fun night out in the West End. I can't remember the last time I saw a musical that really had a story line. I don't think there was any point that the campery was ever mocking, the reality is that women are raped and women do die in the hands of the goverment system. I think Norris has captured the balance between that reality and the fact that it is a musical, so how can it not be camp! I think they have made excellent use of what quite frankly is a small theatre with the set design and AV. The music is fab and Gotts should be celebrated for her truimphant success in producing some many lovely numbers. Last but not least the company....I think the ensamble are a real joy, when they are on stage the energy is high,along with Nicole Faraday who plays Shell and is brilliant. I have seen this twice now, once in previews and now in a finished state and I can truely say it has got so much better so if you saw it in previews go again....you'll love it, I know I did. - els
28 Sep 07
Brilliant - great to see some of the cast of the TV show making an appearence too. Some nice references to the show for the die-hard fans and plenty to entertain the newcomers. Bodybag is loveable and despisable in equal measure.
Not everyone likes Marmite either - but I love it! - Apha
26 Sep 07
I guess this show jerks you either one way or another.There are essentially 2 storylines, the first being Jim Fenner's rape of an inmate, her suicide and the revenge extracted by the other cons, and the second being the lesbian love between an inmate and the wing governor. Although the depth of feeling in both of these lines is clear, the 'lighter side' (it is a musical,after all) is excellently conveyed. This is a brilliant and British show which entertains from start to finish. - Inmate
25 Sep 07
I agree with every good comment on here. The key in the lock as thomas Hill put it. Is not a litteral thing at all it is mearly a very clever Symbolism that fenner has the key to every lock on the wing and therefore he believes he can have any of the women on the wing as well. I think the way that they deal with the rape issue is very clever as fenner as a character would just force himself on anyone no matter what. He is grooming Rachael into trusting him throughout the 1st half and in the tv sries he did the same. I think the songs are fab and the simple set is amazing without the humourous songs such as all banged up it would make for a very deprssing musical. I think they have got the balance quite right. If this makes me a Nazi like KJC calls sarah then so be it. I am proud to say i am going again this week and will go again before it closes in sure!! - Nats
23 Sep 07
I think it's fabulous and me and my friend have seen it twice now and are going again next week! We dressed up as shell dockley with the whats on stage trip and we're going as the two julies next time and the cast loved it saying we have to come as different characters each time lol! Having loved the tv series i was doubtful about whether or not it would live up to it but it definitely has in my opinion, the characterisations are great and just like those off the series, the music and lyrics are hilarious and the catchy tunes make you go home singing, I agree that everyones opinion is valid however i believe its fine to disagree and i'd disagree that the show is in bad taste. The show adresses a lot of serious issues and if it weren't for the comedy you'd probably feel very depressed after watching it! I think its quite brechtian by using comedy to juxtapose the hard hitting stuff, you could be laughing at soemthing and then you step back and think actually thats really awful making the seriousness stand out and making you think about it even more!
The key song, makes me feel sick and makes me dislike the character fenner so i think its a clever song, those of you who have watched the series will know what a nasty and vile man he is so the song is very fitting and by seeing his pleasure whilst singing the song it makes you despise him, he is essentially the villain! The set i think was brilliant by being minamilistic it completely showed what prison is like, if they'd had elaborate scenery it wouldn't be anything like the real thing and the projcetions were a great added extra! i think the bangs to wake up the audience are again very clever even though i'd seen the show before i still jumped each time, it brings a bit of fear into the audience giving them a touch of what it must be like to be in prison as its a scary place!! Its amazingly performed, hilariously funny with brilliant songs i can't wait for the soundtrack which they are apparantly working on! A fab night out!! - liz
23 Sep 07
I agree with the last - and I do wonder whether some of the opinions expressed reflect an "I mustn't comment well on something based on an intellectually naff TV series" attitude - or maybe some discomfort with the lesbian element? The show is a fascinating mix - but above all, it offers 2&a half hours of real entertainment. - Caroline
Opened on 24 Apr 1889, funded by W.S. Gilbert. 675 seats. Bought from Andrew Lloyd Webber and now owned by Broadway producer Max Weitzenhoffer and Nica Burns.Society of London Theatre member.
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