December 4, 2008
Gosh, two girls’ school yarns in one night! Sounds a bit much, doesn’t it, but whilst you might be forgiven for thinking that spoof adventure stories featuring gym slips, clipped accents and hockey sticks have long passed their sell-by date, this double bill at Headington School (ably directed by Carolyn Rigby) will remind you why we got so fond of these ridiculous things in the first place.
Living with Lady Macbeth, about a girl who wants to step outside herself, is something rather special. Everyone she knows is eager to tell Lily Morgan where her limits lie and Lily, totally average and totally nice, is fed up with complying. Suddenly the possibility of playing the part of Lady Macbeth in a school play inspires her to become someone darker and more complicated and we watch her frustration build as her mother, geeky boyfriend and bitchy class mates try to keep her in line. Finally she’s driven to give an audition so dazzling, so authentic, that no one will ever look upon her in the same way again. Hannah Brooks as Lily and Olivia Kashti as Mon are exceptional, and the five girls who stand in Lily’s way have no trouble making us hate them. Excellent.
Daisy Pulls It Off is a more traditional offering. Daisy Meredith (convincingly played by Vicky Cox) has a penniless widowed mother and four rumbustious brothers. Arriving at Grangewood School on a scholarship she’s set the task of winning round the governors and staff, most of whom don’t like the idea of a pauper lowering the tone. Of course, as the (brilliant) narrators warn us, there are plenty of people out to get her, Sybil and Monica of the Upper Fourth (Liv Heininger and Beckie Apley) among them - but, being the total brick that she is, Daisy trumps them all. Not only does she win the hockey and find the treasure that will ensure the school’s survival, she also finds her supposedly drowned father and rescues her two worst enemies from a cliff ledge. Not bad for one evening.
This second play was less polished in performance than the first, and less interesting and clever in conception, but nonetheless it was funny and well done, and the two plays together add up to a better evening than you’d find in many professional theatres.
Living with Lady Macbeth, about a girl who wants to step outside herself, is something rather special. Everyone she knows is eager to tell Lily Morgan where her limits lie and Lily, totally average and totally nice, is fed up with complying. Suddenly the possibility of playing the part of Lady Macbeth in a school play inspires her to become someone darker and more complicated and we watch her frustration build as her mother, geeky boyfriend and bitchy class mates try to keep her in line. Finally she’s driven to give an audition so dazzling, so authentic, that no one will ever look upon her in the same way again. Hannah Brooks as Lily and Olivia Kashti as Mon are exceptional, and the five girls who stand in Lily’s way have no trouble making us hate them. Excellent.
Daisy Pulls It Off is a more traditional offering. Daisy Meredith (convincingly played by Vicky Cox) has a penniless widowed mother and four rumbustious brothers. Arriving at Grangewood School on a scholarship she’s set the task of winning round the governors and staff, most of whom don’t like the idea of a pauper lowering the tone. Of course, as the (brilliant) narrators warn us, there are plenty of people out to get her, Sybil and Monica of the Upper Fourth (Liv Heininger and Beckie Apley) among them - but, being the total brick that she is, Daisy trumps them all. Not only does she win the hockey and find the treasure that will ensure the school’s survival, she also finds her supposedly drowned father and rescues her two worst enemies from a cliff ledge. Not bad for one evening.
This second play was less polished in performance than the first, and less interesting and clever in conception, but nonetheless it was funny and well done, and the two plays together add up to a better evening than you’d find in many professional theatres.