High-tempo pop-influenced musical Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World
Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World, at the Oxford Playhouse, May 25 – 29 May. By JON LEWIS
The success of the musical Six, produced by Kenny Wax, with its all-female cast and band, suggests there is an audience for one-act high tempo pop-influenced musicals about famous women. Wax’s promotion of Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World shares many of the characteristics of Six, except that the show features a dozen influential European and North American females. Maybe a sequel could tell inspiring stories from Africa and Asia.
The conceit is simple: a schoolgirl aged 11, Jade (Elise Zavou, a fantastically great understudy), on a visit to a museum gets lost. She gets sucked into a kind of portal where she encounters four cohorts of heroines, the groups broadly themed as adventure, arts, science and social change. Jade wants a voice, not to change the world but to fix the doomed marriage of her divorcing parents. However, her low self-esteem needs some boosting, and each of the women provides advice and inspiration to her.
Taken from Kate Pankhurst’s picture book, the musical has been adapted by Chris Bush with lyrics by Bush and Miranda Cooper, and music by Cooper and Jennifer Decilveo. The all-women senior creative team of director Amy Hodge, designer Joanna Scotcher, Choreographer Dannielle ‘Rhimes’ Lecointe, and lighting designer Zoe Spurr leaves only producer Kenny Wax as a male making key decisions. Cooper, with four number one hits with bands like Girls Aloud and The Sugarbabes, has crafted a series of infectiously jolly tunes which get the feet tapping. The lyrics of the rap-pop Deeds Not Words have the potential to become an anthem sung at women’s rights rallies and the song is typical of a musical that inspires girls to fulfil their potential.
Jade Kennedy, Renee Lamb, Kirstie Skivington and Christina Modestou play all the historical characters bar the non-speaking Anne Frank. These women challenged the status quo - Mary Seacole’s struggle to nurse soldiers in The Crimea, Jane Austen overcoming patriarchal publishing decisions, Mary Anning continually battling her fossil discoveries being stolen by male adversaries and Rosa Parks’ refusal to give in to racism – four of the discoveries in the museum.
Huge fun.
