Fan Girls
Book, Music and Lyrics by Yve Blake. Director Paige Rattray. Dramarturg Jonathan
Ware. Vocal Arranger Alice Chance. Music Producer. Dave Muratore. Dunstan
Playhouse. Adelaide Cabaret Festival June 16 2018
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
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| Yve Blake's original musical FAN GIRLS wows audiences in a script reading and presentation at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. |
In recent years, the Adelaide Cabaret Festival has presented
a live script reading of a new musical
in development. Eddie Perfect’s Shane
Warne the Musical was presented at
a previous festival before going on to
full mainstage production. This year the festival has presented one showing of
Yve Blake’s exploding, energy fired account of teenage infatuation, perceived
angst and idealistic dreams. Blake’s central character, Edna is a fourteen year
old schoolgirl, infatuated with True Connection lead singer, Harry. She lives
with her mother and writes fan fiction. Her schoolfriends, Brianna and Jules and Salty
meet to share their fan fiction ideas, and are eventually drawn into a fan
fiction fantasy world in which reality and fantasy become the blurred imaginings
of the hormone bedevilled teenager.
Blake’s mastery of book, music
and lyric is nothing short of inspirational. This is the most moving, exciting
and refreshingly modern musical about the lives, loves and rites of passage of
a young teenage girl. I am swept away by the musical’s exuberance, intrigued by
the story’s twists and turns and sleight of hand with its intellectual trickery
and emotional impact. It is a musical for our time, the voice of a young generation, crying out to be heard. From pop o hip hop and hard rock, the music pounds out the rhythms of loving and loathing, performed with confident power by he principals, supported by the Aural Vocal Ensemble. Fan Girls is a
musical of the heart that challenges the mind and with explosive lyrics tears
down the walls of preconception, compelling an audience to confront stereotype
and prejudice. It is a visceral interpretation of real dreams breaking free and
casting aside conditioned views of a patriarchal society.
In a condensed version of the
musical commissioned by the Australian Theatre for Young People, Blake weaves
in the fears and jealousies of young girls, their hopes and dreams and their
obsessed fantasies. We are shown reality but beyond that is the hope of
empowerment, the search for identity and the strength to overcome the struggles
imposed upon one and of one’s own imaginings. Fan Girls is more than the cry of a tribe. It is a lesson for all,
bursting with energy and phenomenal young talent. Watch out for this new work
.It has made a fan out of me and will blow you away.