Office Girls Fight Back!
9 to 5 The Musical
Theatre Severn
16th-19th March (Incl. Saturday Matinee)
One hears so much about the high octane group that is Get Your Wigle On, and if it is high octane, high energy performances you enjoy then this is the troupe for you.
This company has been enjoying success after success and tonight they showed that they will continue to fulfil that brief.
The show is a direct descendent of Dolly Parton’s movie back in the eighties. Some might mark that decade as the one where the tide began turning and the Women’s movement started gaining support and ground on their plight to achieve equality in the workplace. Leaving that argument aside, let us turn our attention to the cast.
Tonight we saw some lovely characterisation, well observed characters with great singing voices to boot.
Violet (Emily Riley) Judy (Hannah Bowen) Doralee (Rhian Ellis) really shone as the three conspirators and James Archer’s Franklin Hart was a tour de-force. Not sure how he kept out of jail and maybe in the real world he wouldn’t but it all worked out in the resolution as Hart was sent packing to a foreign land and the girls chalked up their victory.
The scheming Hart didn’t stand alone and with his secret admirer Roz (Jemma Game) the balance had been kept strictly in the misogynistic Hart’s favour. But when the girls decide enough was enough the rebellion starts and rightly so!
If the WIgles' only objective was to give players that sense of professional performance, they would have achieved that, if their only objective to give the cast a great fun time with loads of talented and creative friends they have done that too. But the Wigles have a further and more important objective and that is deliver quality form the stage, they stepped up to the plate there too.
Opening night is a tough night and no one knows that more than the reviewers; however if the stage is to abound with energy and power it is important to know where everything is.There were a couple of shoulder clashes in the dances and a couple of collisions with the desks on the very full stage, but they can be forgiven as opening night's for settling in. Spatial awareness is crucial on stage though, get it wrong and it can let one down, rather.
However, this is a show with humour and with fun. It takes a serious issue, that of inequality and sexism, and deals with it in a clever and fun way possibly a little fantasmagorical for the real world but hey it’s not the real world. It’s simply Dollywood.
One was impressed at the maintaining of the American accents; in this reviewer's ear not one mistake was heard. The score and live orchestra gave the show lift just at the right times and the singing both in Solo and Company was superb and Hannah Bowen gave her all in, “Get out and Stay Out,” It was a masterly performance and she showed maturity way beyond her years. She also brought the house down.
There were many little jewels in this show and when little jewels are put together they make one very shiny piece of treasure.
This is a Three Star Review
Owen J.Lewis
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Sofia Lewis For many years Sofia wrote here under her male name Owen J. Lewis. She is now mostly writing under her own name of Sofia Lewis. Sofia, who worked on independent radio for over ten years, lives in Shrewsbury and writes plays. She has over 15 titles published and her plays are performed all over the world. She is especially popular in America. Her poetry is also often noted and she writes reams of it most weeks. Since graduating in theatre in 1997 Sofia has been an Actor, Filmmaker, and a Secondary School Teacher. Reviewing theatre is something she thoroughly enjoys and she loves to see great theatre. As a musician Sofia is known throughout the UK she is a folk singer, and is often seen or heard around her native county singing and having fun. Sofia has contributed to loveshrewsbury.com for over a decade and enjoys sharing her views on theatre. Sofia has one daughter and grew up in Church Stretton. |
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