Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World at The Other Palace

Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World is a musical based on the books by Kate Pankhurst and adapted by Chris Bush, which looks at numerous women from across history and celebrates their achievements. The show is told through the eyes of Jade, a young girl who finds herself lost on a school trip to a museum and ends up in an unopened exhibition. In this exhibition she meets women from history such as Amelia Earhart, Marie Curie, Emmeline Pankhurst, Rosa Parks and more as they help her understand how she can leave her own mark on the world, just like they did.

The show is clearly aimed at families and if I had young children this show would shoot to the top of my list to take them to. It doesn’t belittle anything that our storytelling Jade is feeling throughout but instead uses wonderful women to boost her up. Throughout the show we are met with women who have achieved great things in aviation, sports, science, art, literature and civil rights but none of them are deemed more important than the other. Instead they are all embraced and celebrated and used to drive home the lesson that what matters is what is right for you. The show clearly embraces feminism and affirms just how much harder women had to work compared to their male counterparts but ensures it is done in a fun way so it never feels preachy.

The show is 80 minutes straight through and consequently the pace is fast, which is exactly what is needed for a show like this to avoid it feeling like a school lesson. Whilst after the frst 20 minutes the unfolding of the show is predictable as one fanatstically great woman pops out of the set followed by other it steers clear of getting tiresome.

There are 10 songs by Miranda Cooper and Jennifer Decilved with lyrics by Cooper and Chris Bush throughout the show including the Megamix, The songs were upbeat and fun with a personal favourite of mine, Mary, Mary and Marie which told us about Mary Seacole, Mary Anning and Marie Curie through Jade’s eyes. Deeds Not Words is also a number I found myself humming and will be chanting the mantra for days to come. The songs aren’t all up tempo through, towards the end of the show we are treated to Rosa’s Lullaby which Rosa Parks sings to Jade and Anne Frank after explaining the it takes a team to change the world, not just a single person. The 3 piece band were also clearly on view throughout the show and it was a nice touch to see drummer Isis Dunthorne join the actors on stage during ‘A World of Colour.’

Jade is played by Georgia Grant-Anderson whose acting is so believable as a primary school child I found myself checking the programme to check she was not a child performer. She had a huge amount of energy and vulnerability in the role and ensured that the role never condescended the younger audience members she is representing on stage. The historical fantastically great women were for the most part played by Elena Breschi, Meg Hateley, Charlotte Jaconelli and Anelisa Lamola. They were all tasked with the job of playing around 3 very different women, for example Lamola took on the roles of Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks and Mary Seacole and the entire cast portrayed all of their roles with bundles of originality to keep the show feeling fresh.

Set and costume design by Joanna Scotcher highlighted the youthful feel of the show, with bright neon colours featuring in both. There were moments that a couple of the costumes elements veered towards cheap looking but this was a minor niggle in a show which saw at least 25 costumes in the space of 80 minutes.

Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World is a wonderfully effective and enjoyable crash course in history that left me not only feeling more knowledgeable about the fantastic women who have paved the way for me but empowered and delighted to get my own membership card as I left the auditorium.

Fantastically Great Women who Changed The World is running at The Other Palace until 8th September. You can find out more and book tickets here.

If you like this review you might also like my review of Emilia, Sylvia, Ride and Six – all shows about other fantastically great women.

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