Was it grool? Mean Girls review round-up

Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage

★★★★

“Its main asset is that it is written by Tina Fey, who also wrote the 2004 movie on which it was based and went on to find broader fame as the creator and star of 30 Rock. This means that it has a book as corrosive as acid but much funnier. For example. ‘I want to change your eyebrows,’ barks controlling apex predator Regina to her acolyte Karen. ‘Can I still have two?’ asks Karen, trotting along obediently. Or: ‘Rich blonde women love pity because it’s so hard for them to get.'”

“The performances… are a pleasure. Georgina Castle is wonderfully spiteful as Regina, and Elèna Gyasi brilliantly neurotic as the hapless Gretchen, constantly undermined by her own insecurities. But the standout Plastic is Grace Mouat as Karen, who introduces herself by saying ‘I may not be smart’ and goes on to prove it in a sequence of brilliantly-timed blank interventions. Her performance of “Sexy” at the Halloween party, where she suddenly has to wheel herself round because she realises she is facing the wrong way, is a comic joy.”

Fiona Mountford, The i

★★★★

“A cynic might say that Fey should have acknowledged to a considerably greater extent the overwhelmingly toxic prevalence of social media in teenage lives now, but that is my only quibble. As those who have seen the new film version of this musical released earlier this year will know, Jeff Richmond (composer) and Nell Benjamin (lyrics) supply a highly tuneful score that is a riot of peppy, poppy songs; unusually for a new musical, I came away humming several of the numbers.”

“Director/choreographer Casey Nicholaw, the man behind the indefatigable The Book of Mormon, certainly knows how to concoct a slick production. An artful set of screens play host to a panoply of scene-setting video projections, and classroom desks/cafeteria tables whizz briskly on and off with the actors still sitting on them.”

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph

★★★★

“Can I justify cheering on Mean Girls? Set beside a recent musical visitor to the Savoy like Sunset Boulevard, it is mere chaff; the songs (by Jeff Richmond and Nell Benjamin) are catchy yet forgettable. But just as there was a winning comic zest to the film (scripted by Tina Fey), so this spin-off (which spawned a film itself) has a rare combination of warmth, goofiness, snarky wit and perceptiveness. Tweaked for London, the superbly well-cast production, directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw, never allows a dull minute even if its general thrust is cosily predictable.

“My stamp of approval comes partly endorsed (and enforced) by my Gen Z companion (daughter, late teens, and a fan). But the bottom line is that the show rocked on Broadway in 2018 (even if later felled by Covid) because, unlike its brittle protagonists, it has a sure sense of itself – sending up earnestness while being alert to claws-out peer pressure.”

Anya Ryan, The Stage

★★★

“When iconic lines are said on stage – ‘It’s October 3rd,’ ‘You go Glen Coco,’ ‘She doesn’t even go here,’ to name but a few – they’re met with roars from the audience. Scenes roll slickly into one another, aided by wiping video projections by Finn Ross and Adam Young. Nothing feels surprising.

“Perhaps, I’m being a cynic. The script, by Fey, is self-aware to its core and very, very funny with snappy lines such as the warning from Karen to chop off your head if you’re ever sending nudes to boys: ‘They don’t even miss it,’ she says plainly. Most of the cast live up to the expectations of their Hollywood counterparts – particularly Georgina Castle as Regina, who is a picture-perfect Barbie doll with a nightmarish glint in her eye.”

Chris Wiegand, The Guardian

★★★

“Fey’s book adds some zingers but also sanitises some of the screenplay and the overall effect – with Jeff Richmond’s music and Nell Benjamin’s lyrics – is less corrosive from the start and drags towards the end. Newly arrived from being home-schooled in Kenya, Cady walks the halls of North Shore High in Illinois surrounded by mostly cheery students in a joyous opener, rather than being plunged into terror to the sound of ‘Rip Her to Shreds’ as in the film. Cady’s journey from naif to Plastic clone is less carefully delineated and, strangely, Fey’s character in the movie, Ms Norbury, is underwritten. Zoë Rainey, playing that role, gets better lines doubling as Regina’s mum who, of course, is now on all the socials.

Nick Curtis, Evening Standard

★★★

Clive Davis, The Times

★★★

“Mean Girls — based on the 2004 film of the same name — certainly delivers enough of them. As in the original, Tina Fey’s script lands plenty of smart jabs, even if the production values lack the movie’s veneer of teenage designer-label gloss. This show, first seen on Broadway in 2018, was scheduled to transfer to London four years ago but became another victim of the pandemic. It now arrives in the wake of a big-screen, released in January, which was panned by my colleague Kevin Maher.”

Tim Bano, The Independent

★★

“While all these kids are presented as completely assured, comfortable in their own cliques, the musical itself struggles to find its own identity. The film came out in 2004 – twenty years ago! – and although Fey’s apparently set the musical version in the present day, the evidence for that is scarce. Damien has an Eras tour poster on his wall; there’s a mention of Ozempic. That’s about it. Spiritually, it feels much more like a period piece. It doesn’t go near any of the concerns of high school kids today, and instead assumes that enough has stayed the same for the story to work. I don’t think that’s the case, and we end up with a show that’s pulling itself between past and present.”