When she's outed at school as the writer of a particularly elaborate fanfic involving going on the run with the singer, Edna feels more isolated than ever. When the band finally announce an Australian tour and she can't afford to join her friends in the mosh pit, Edna decides to take matters into her own hands and make her fiction a reality.
For a show that's essentially a comic romp, Fangirls shows a pretty in-depth understanding of parasocial relationships - I'd be surprised if Blake's own previous writing experience hadn't involved a fair amount of her own fanfic. The first act is a sympathetic but fun run through Edna's relationships both in real life and online: At school her friendship group is imploding and leaving her out, as Jules (a scene-stealing Mary Malone) is dealing with her parents' divorce by reinventing herself as the school's queen bitch who's happy to take it out on her former friend, while Brianna's (Miracle Chance) response to puberty is to turn completely introverted.
With her underappreciated mother (Debbie Kurup) having to work all hours Edna feels unsupported in real life, and a mutual appreciation for each other's writing turns into a friendship with Terique Jarrett's American teen SaltyPringle, who inadvertently ends up helping her plot how to abduct her idol, thinking they're co-writing a fic. Blake's overall theme is about teenage girls' concerns and interests being dismissed too easily, and she's very clear both about online bullying and trauma being real bullying and trauma and, through Salty and the chorus of other lonely teenagers behind screens, online friendships being real friendships.
The comedy's also pretty reliably strong as well as being quite unexpected - the sweet and silly teen story occasionally blurts out something surprisingly filthy, like a song basically comprising of different ways of saying "stop whatever you're doing" including the lyric "if you're giving birth then clench your flaps." Its darker and more serious side is also snuck in, at least initially, with the lively story beginning to include references to fans encouraging each other to self-harm when Harry disappears. But this is also where things start to fall apart, and after the interval the show is stuffed with syrupy ballads laboriously explaining the darker themes about what teenage girls go through that were already perfectly clear to the audience.
The second act is also where the story completely loses its way as we see Edna tying Harry up in her bedroom. It clearly doesn't help seeing this so soon after I'm Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire, which knew absolutely how twisted it wanted to play its premise. Here, Elcock's Edna has never been anywhere near deranged and unsympathetic enough for the twist to make sense, making the whole plotline way too uncomfortable for the show that surrounds it. There's also a strong sense that, having taken the story into the kidnapping twist, Blake doesn't know what to do with it. It's particularly notable in the way it's resolved (SPOILER ALERT) by shrugging it off; considering how sympathetic the play has been until then to artists being exploited and overworked, it's jarring to see it cheerfully discard the 18-year-old Harry with what amounts to "well he had PTSD and was ridiculed the rest of his life because people didn't believe him but we've moved on from him now, girl power yay!"
By this point Paige Rattray's production has no hope of reconciling the wildly different moods and ideas being flung at it, and it's a shame to see the evening get bogged down by them because there's so many nice touches to enjoy: I loved the dynamic way David Fleischer's set and Ash J Woodward's video worked together to give, at times, a concert-like feel, at others the impression of being surrounded by an online community. The running gags are great fun, with Grant's Harry, straight off the cover of Non-Threatening Boys Magazine, having hair that can send teenage girls into spasms with just one flick, as well as Gracie McGonigal repeatedly coming out of the ensemble at the end of a big number to upstage the leads with vocal gymnastics.
Moments like Max James Hodge spending one scene as a lifeguard in trunks for no plot-related reason show the tongue-in-cheek way the production knows exactly the audience of girls and gays it's catering for. And while there's a decently large ensemble (Sonia Friedman's producing so they're obviously hoping for a transfer) giving fun choreography from Ebony Williams, the production still has fun cross-dressing everyone to make up the numbers - I don't know why I found Kurup as one of the less-beloved boybanders so funny, but I did. But the unfocused second act makes for a turgid overall impression*, and the fact that I've got to the end of a musical review without mentioning the songs probably says enough about how much of an impression they made.
Fangirls by Yve Blake is booking until the 24th of August at the Lyric Hammersmith.
Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including interval.
Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.
*in a slight variation on my recurring grumble about advertised running times, the Lyric has for some reason decided to replace its posters giving (reasonably accurate) running times for each act, with ones telling you the precise time each act is going to start and finish. Given that late starts mean this ends up being wildly inaccurate, it doesn't help the feeling that the second act is plodding on when the final bows come 20 minutes later than advertised.
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