Review: Girls Who War (Lion & Unicorn Theatre)

I have recently enjoyed my second visit to the Lion and Unicorn Theatre, this time for Girls Who War, the debut original full length show from Working Girls Theatre Company. It was great to be there for opening night, and seated in a full theatre too.

Girls Who War is a farcical comedy with musical narration, focusing on three flatmates. After a national draft is issued, they must decide which one of them should go to war. Written and produced by Jaymee-Leigh Thackray, this is an interesting concept and there is a lot going on in the play.

Felicity (Eleanor Jones) and Mads, (Lana Lei) see the draft letter first, and make a plan to stitch up George (Sophie Wolsencroft) by making out she has to go to war according to the letter. Chaos follows as the three girls continue to discuss this situation and take action as the play continues.

Inexplicably the fourth character in this play is Vera Lynn, played by Halli Pattison.  Vera owns the stage and belts out some perfectly formed songs (Annie Napier did an amazing job with the music here), and is otherwise non-verbal. She spends a fair bit of the time asleep and only seems to be completely animated when she is narrating through her songs, but there is absolutely no doubt that Vera is the star of this show. Of course she is, she’s Vera Lynn for goodness sake, but the performance from Halli Pattison in this role was utterly captivating, and a couple of the songs evoked rounds of applause which were very well deserved.

Later in the play, Lana Lei and Sophie Wolsencroft show their versatility, playing two older characters manning a sandwich stand. These two characters were entertaining, their mannerisms in particular amusing to watch.

There is an interesting dynamic in the flatshare situation in that two of the three are paying the rent and the third is a “struggling artist”. There are hints of how the other two are feeling about this but I feel, in reality, this would be a source of seething resentment and I would have liked to have seen this expanded on. Some of the comedy moments fell a bit flat, even with a very mixed audience, and at times the direction was a bit over the top, but this is a promising debut play and it has great potential to become a must-see show, with a little further development.

I will be very interested to see what the future holds for Working Girls Theatre Company and all who were involved with this production.

⭐⭐⭐

Girls Who War is playing at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre until 16th April.

I was gifted a ticket for this show in exchange for an honest review.