Mean Girls musical on tour review – the cautionary tale is still worth telling

Spoiler Alert! Twenty-two years on from the original cautionary tale… “mean girls” are still just as mean, and these apex predators are coming to a theatre near you.

The touring production of Tina Fey’s Mean Girls launches in Manchester in a blaze of sassy attitude, razor-sharp asides and lashings of teen melodrama. Adapted from the 2004 film, the musical keeps its claws sharp while adding a sugar rush of pop belters and choreography that is as fast-paced as the gossip that runs through the school corridors. 

For the uninitiated, a naive Cady Heron arrives in an Illinois high school fresh from being home-schooled in Kenya. She is swiftly adopted, consumed, then spat out by “The Plastics”, a trio of vacuous mean girls.

The production is slick and fluid, sliding between cafeteria, classroom and girly bedrooms with insouciance. The backdrops may look quite basic, but the dance elements and multitude of costumes bring the staging alive. 

The performances are where it really pops. Vivian Panka as Regina is deliciously nasty and Instagram-perfect, her vocals snarling like acutely aimed insults. Kiara Dario as Gretchen and Sophie Pourret as Karen provide sparkling comic timing. Every neurotic aside and vacant observation is perfectly observed and lands flawlessly. Steps member Faye Tozer is uniformly excellent in all her varied roles and could well win a homecoming crown for her rapid costume changes.

The “geeks and freaks” are well served by excellent performances by Max Gill as Damien and Georgie Buckland as Janis, who delivers some real powerhouse vocals and brings a vital, raw energy to this polished production. In the midst of these teen factions is Emily Lane as Cady, whose vocal delivery is always exceptional, though there is more scope to explore all the facets of a teenage Cady.

Musically, the score leans into glossy pop and power ballad territory. Not every number lingers beyond the curtain call, but the big hitters land with a satisfying thud. “World Burn” is a standout, a revenge aria dressed as a stadium anthem. It crackles with theatrical menace, the lighting design bathing the stage in infernal reds as reputations go up in smoke. “Where Do I Belong?” has a big Broadway feel to it, and the choreography using the canteen furniture is inventive and impactful.

There are moments where the satire occasionally pulls its punches. The film’s sharper edges have been buffed to a family-friendly sheen, and some of the darker absurdities of teenage cruelty are softened by a pop chorus and a well-timed gag. The fast pacing means that moments of genuine fragility and human truth are not leaned into with a more satisfying depth. Yet the heart of the story remains intact: the recognition that identity is fragile, popularity is performance, and kindness is radical.

Perhaps that is the show’s quiet triumph, as beneath the gloss and glitter, it suggests that tearing up the burn book is more rebellious than actually writing in it.