(seen at the afternoon performance on 1st July 2026)
Like most children of its era, the monkey learned reading endurance working through Enid Blyton’s “Secret Seven,” “Famous Five” and “Five Find-Outers and Dog,” with a little Noddy and many short story compilations thrown in.
Also, like most boys of the era, it was discouraged from seeking out “Malory Towers” – “girls’ books”. Rubbish of course, but those were the times, and it did sneak one or two.
Fortunately, it really needed no background to adore these fine emerging young women, shaped by the best school in the world.
Emma Rice adapts and directs a rather adorable little musical, Ian Ross supplying a few new tunes alongside some classics.
His “If I Were A Girl” is a strikingly similar pastiche of another of that title, “Hush Now Sally” and “Sweet Rain Turns to Hail” quite strong, and “Fairy Queen” a lovely setting of the Bard’s words. Not forgetting the School Hymn, rousing enough to unite all.
Rice frames the story as the coma dream of Mary-Lou Atkinson (Emily Panes, in for Eden Barrie). Bullied and knocked out in a modern school, after invoking the spirit of Malory Towers, Blyton, Harry Potter and more to help her; she finds kind Sally (Bethany Wooding) in 1947… ready to assist her onto the train from London to the oceanside school.
From there, it is about meeting a host of lively youngsters, watching them come together as a band of close friends and figure out life’s challenges – with a few rather ripping adventures thrown in.
Robyn Sinclair is forthright, with the muscle to back it up, as Darrell Rivers. She calls it as she sees it, and is only interested in justice. Her openness is her downfall in the closeted environment, rescuing Sally means no good deed is unpunished.
The real villain is Gwendoline Lacey. Anna Soden manages genuinely to make the audience despise her, yet pulls it all back in a few lines during a final heart-wrenching scene. With Wooding as our moderator, how could it be otherwise?
Molly Cheesley delivers Alicia Johns’s excruciating puns well enough to draw groans from all corners of the theatre, and even winces from her co-stars. There is a reason she has two panto credits on her CV, and will probably add scads more during her career.
Making a late appearance as horse-mad Bill Robinson, Zoe West has us believe firmly in her steed, and makes the most of the act one cliffhanger (literally).
Stephanie Hockley is another key player – again literally – as on-stage pianist and musical composing French student Irene Dupont. Entirely credible and exactly the ethereal presence the show needs to enhance its dreamy soft feel.
Particular credit must go to Simon Baker, Beth Carter and Stuart Mitchell for immaculate video projections. Witty, inventive and detailed.
Lyndi and Sara Wright match them for puppetry, solving cleverly several tricky staging problems.
If Alistair David’s choreography is sometimes eccentric, it does rather fit the songs and ages of the characters, as does Lez Brotehrston’s simple schoolhouse space, with wall bars and a piano, dormitory sliding on as required.
There is perhaps a little trimming possible in early scenes of meeting the girls, and the “Midsummer Night’s Dream” stretched the pace at the end, but the final word must go to Ella in the third row.
A very young lady on a treat with her mother, her enthusiastic commentary and utter belief in the lives she was watching proves so infectious that Anna Soden made sure we all knew her name.
Sums up the whole production. It is “sensible, sound and strong, ready to be valued, loved and trusted.” These women are indeed in a show that the world can lean on.
It is playing the summer 2026 season at Alexandra Palace Theatre. As an introduction for young ones to the books or a little glass of nostalgia for the more senior, this modest show’s values are a charming antidote to our stressfully confusing times.
4 stars.