Fringe opera and musicals reviews: Girlhood in the Bathroom | Our Seventh String + more

Girlhood in the Bathroom | Girlhood Productions

Girlhood in the Bathroom ★★★★

Gilded Balloon Teviot (Venue 14) until 22 August

New Year’s Eve is a time to think about new beginnings, but also an opportunity to address past and current issues. What better place to do this than a nightclub? Five women in their twenties, two besties and a trio, meet in the most glamorous of places - a nightclub bathroom.

The bathroom is filled with confessions, arguments and plenty of heart-to-hearts, creating a genuine sense of togetherness and girl power.

There is the inevitable boy talk and talk of sexual assault, which is moving and quietly powerful. But the majority of the focus is on the girls themselves, growing up and friendship. The more difficult topics and emotional scenes don’t try too hard to be that, they just are.

Brilliant lyrics are matched with creative, crisp choreography and the group never miss a beat. There is an impressive range of musical styles, from pop and rap, to choir-esque moments. A rap about drinking Fireball and a song about charity-shop buys are particularly memorable, alongside songs about heartbreak and confessions.

The vocals are equally impressive, from powerful belting to more subtle moments, with strong harmonies throughout. There is versatility in both the piece and the performances, and just when you think you’ve heard the standout number, another comes along.

Ironically, the least-used part of the set is the toilet itself. Yet the clever design allows us to see into the cubicle, keeping the action visible, even when someone simply has their head down the loo.

The production captures girlhood in an uplifting and empowering way, showing how these once fearless little girls are growing into confident young women through the support of one another. It is a celebration of friendship, while recognising how hard growing up can be. Suzanne O'Brien

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Our Seventh String ★★★★

Venue 45 at theSpace @ Venue 45 (Venue 45) Until 22 August

Our Seventh String explores the strained relationships between six free spirits who have reconvened to bid goodbye to their old share house in Melbourne one last time.

As they muse on the nature of creating art in a world which feels increasingly hostile towards the act, they reminisce and eventually reconcile through the medium of folk songs (an entirely original score with great replay potential, co-composed by Lauren Green and Emily Napolitano).

The music is the beating heart of this show, weaving relationships between the characters without shoehorning in needless exposition. Seven Years Ago (Part One) in particular is a standout, as the group stumble over themselves to explain why the atmosphere is so hostile at their reunion.

The show has to scaffold a great many characters and relationships in a punishingly tight runtime (45 minutes). There’s no space for tension to build or resentment to fester; as soon as the lights come up, the group is immediately bickering and sniping. That may be necessary from a pacing perspective, but it also doesn’t leave much scope for emotional escalation - everyone has already laid their grievances out on the table, so each successive fallout between individuals doesn’t hit as hard as it could.

It’s a testament to the actors that, with an average of just six minutes per character, they can still paint a compelling portrait of each one. The group is clearly capable of pulling off a much more complex story than theSpace’s (understandably) tight schedule allows.

Our Seventh String is bursting with heart and ambition - well-produced, effectively acted and with plenty of room to grow, it’s a relatable tableau for anyone experiencing the uneasy limbo of their mid-twenties. With a triumphant UK debut under their belt, I’m intrigued to see what the talented team behind Paperfolk Theatre does next. Ariane Branigan

Antigone 1989: A Town Hall Musical ★★★

Gilded Balloon Patter House (Venue 24) until 29 August

Set in Thebes, California, this retelling of Sophocles casts the audience as citizens summoned by an exiled Oracle, who narrates from the sidelines. Two brothers are dead after a protest on the capitol steps: gay activist Nikolas, memorialised by his sister Tigg as a spray-painted angel, and his conservative cop brother Elias, whom the Governor declares a hero.

The eight-strong cast are talented singers, Emmalynn Bruce and Sierra Safran (as sisters Tigg and Issa) blending voice and emotion well, and Trevor Hudson’s (as Governor Calvin) low register is a highlight, though the score rarely varies enough to distinguish one number from the next, and vocals occasionally overpower the songs themselves. Sharp one-liners cut through (“my family is worse than my caseload”), and a new law criminalising “disruption of the peace” lands as pointed, timely commentary.

A subplot referencing the AIDS epidemic, glimpsed in a lesion and a song about loving in the shadows, deserves more space than it’s given. Finally, billed as immersive, the audience is gestured at throughout rather than meaningfully involved, and the Oracle device seems a missed opportunity to implicate us in the action, as oppressed citizens of Thebes. Josephine Balfour-Oatts

Mountains and Seas: A Rock Musical ★★★

theSpace @ Niddry Street (Venue 9) until 22 August

There’s an unerring sense of almost constant movement to this scaled down version of Taiwanese creation myth based on the script by Nobel Prize winner Gao Xingjian. Originally written for a cast of 53, this has been trimmed to a more manageable company of 15 well-marshalled young performers who fill every inch of the space with practiced grace.

As this begins at the dawn of time and concerns the creation of humanity and subsequent war of gods and monsters, you can’t fault its ambition although it’s fair to quibble with some of the music.

Full cast numbers which lean more towards typical big production numbers hit the mark as the performers sing strongly as a group. Individual vocal performances, however, can sometimes be a little uncertain and the more rock-inflected numbers have a rather unfortunate poundshop Jim Steinman vibe as the backing tracks are less-than-inspired.

Although performed in English, helpful supertitles are projected on the backdrop (they’re not strictly necessary but useful for confirming that one character is indeed described as “a frickin fiery boy”). The performances are strongest when they favour bold stylings over naturalism and you will leave the theatre humming the irresistibly catchy title song. Rory Ford

READ MORE: The Singer: KT Tunstall and Cora Bissett on the personal stories behind their new musical

John Logie Baird — The Musical ★★

St Columba’s by the Castle Scottish Episcopal Church (Venue 367) until 29 August

A bizarre one-man musical biography of the life and times of the inventor of television from Clydebank actor Robin Cairns.

Also a stand-up comedian, Cairns is best known for his character Morningside Malcolm, and while his portrayal of Baird mostly sticks to a mostly dry, if chatty, straightforward biography, the constant digs at the former Director General of the BBC, Sir John Reith, and occasionally bonkers songs suggest he intends it to be rather funnier than it appears.

A reggae-inflected number about Baird’s early experiences making fruit preserves (“gimme dat marmalade!”) approaches Springtime For Hitler levels of WTF. It’s not good but it is at least genuinely eccentric. Rory Ford

1 Night at Ford’s Theatre ★★

Rotunda Theatre (Venue 65) until 23 August

Some fine musicianship and solid singing bolster this new student musical concerning the assassination of President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. Unfortunately, it’s severely hampered by some confused storytelling.

Presented as a “circus of memory” by P. T. Barnum (who, contrary to his reputation, falls very far short of his reputation as a great showman) it’s a loose collection of scenes lacking narrative drive that gives the characters short shrift.

It’s not actually clear which performer is playing Booth until after the halfway mark and the lack of context make the songs hard to engage with (although Sic Semper Tyrannis! is quite catchy). It’s a solidly interesting idea but still needs a lot of work. Rory Ford

Britain’s Got Nonsense ★

Braw Venues @ Grand Lodge (Venue 7) until 22 August

There’s one half-decent idea in this shambolic new musical by Lisa G Wright; the performer playing Simon Cowell sports a photo badge of the real impresario so you can tell who he’s supposed to be.

It’s a shame the rest of the cast didn’t follow suit as it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that the old bloke in the silver wig was meant to be Louis Walsh. The songs are very poor, none of the cast can carry a tune and the script is littered with stereotypes that would be offensive if it weren’t so inept.

A bad idea shoddily executed; if there’s a Fringe show playing in Hell’s waiting room, you have to imagine that it’s much like this. Rory Ford

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