Adapted from the Book by Muriel Sparks

Written by Gabriel Quigley

Directed by Roxana Silbert

Tickets: £16.00

We love to revel in the victory of the war: scenes of long-separated couples embracing under fluttering flags and bunting, the stark bombed-out reality of it all blurred into the backdrop.

In this stirring adaptation from writer Gabriel Quigley, the emotional eccentricities of the summer of 1945, not long following Victory in Europe, where Muriel Spark’s novella finds the uncertain potential for joy in these days – where the impact and trauma of the war sits under the surface, and for many the allure of prosperity just over the Atlantic sparks hope. Chiefly for five young women of the May of Teck Club lodgings, a hostel/housing for young women reaching the twenty-five, seeking professions and a future job in London, but crucially somewhere safe to stay together as Britain disarms the sirens, packs up the rubble, and the nation attempts to re-build itself in the upcoming post-war election.

Trauma and temporariness are sword and shield in Quigley’s writing, expertly utilised with Roxana Silbert’s direction. Through a division of time, switching narrative threads between 1945 and 1963, much of the show (in a turn away from the book) runs through the recent ‘peacetime’ of the end of the war. In a limbo realm of rationing, Quigley does a sharp turn in representing each of the ensemble roles with individuality and purpose. A remnant of the strength in Spark’s novella is that it all comes over as poignantly nostalgic in the everyday concerns of romance, politics, and complaining about rationing and grouchy housemistresses.

Though fragmented between time, Quigley theatrically focuses the audience’s gaze through the experiences of one of the girls principally, Jane Wright (Molly Ververs). It offers an anchor point for an audience rather than readers. We start not in the hostel or the broken-blitzed streets but in Jane’s office as editor of Elan fashion magazine. From the off, audiences can see the thought and detail in Jessica Worrall’s design work, where primary and bold colours stand out against sepia and monochrome set-drops of destruction: commanding attention and drawing us into the excellent performances. Vevers sparkling with such a wholesome balance of emotion and life, gradually building to a powerful combustion of the true impact of the loss and lingering pain of austere measures.

A betraying sound design from Nick Powell demonstrates as much about this time as the scripting and performance: faint scribblings of scratchy vinyl music and music halls lead into echoes of long-since departed men flitter around the stage (save for Seamus Dillane’s Nicholas Farringdon, every bit as caddish as he is charming): shop mannequins or solitary top hats filling their place to represent a generation of men lost to savagery and reinforce this as a production celebrating the excellent emerging talent of women. An exceedingly impressive ensemble, embodying generations of emotional turmoil and experience in two hours – a remarkably impressive feat, and a thrill to watch this female-led cast on the Lyceum.

And that’s the heart of the success of the production. The chemistry is immediate yet natural, growing through the show with strands of which of the girls get on better in the house and which are concealing something from the others. Amy Kennedy’s Amy often gets the best lines, at least comedically, and is played with all the spiffing vim and vigour the role calls for (with some excellent knitwear) and a balance to the more delusional sympathies of Shannon Watson’s Pauline who is infatuated and (possibly) dating none other than Scotland’s Jack Buchanan. Opposites: Molly McGrath’s gentle (though they have their emotionally combustive moments) and fantastically paced and held Jo is a stark difference to Julia Brown’s Selina, every bit as illustrious and alluring as they role necessitates, carried with a precision and richness that maintains the necessary intrigue and humanity that makes their actions all the more human. 

Though a touch slender in its fragmented use of time, Silbert’s direction maintains solid pacing for a two-hour show that feels it could benefit from one or two additional scenes. An enormous compliment, to say that more time with this excellent cast was (in this case) longed for. Competently and well-crafted to an impressive aesthetical detail, The Girls of Slender Means is the Lyceum’s most solid and flourishing production of the year. A show not designed to set the world alight, quite the reverse, Quigley’s is an appreciative experience, even warming amidst the desolation of the blitz: bringing life and merriment and form to the often two-dimensional shadows of the women impacted by the war, but who kept (somewhat) calm and carried on, now serving a firmly impressive and zesty control of the Lyceum stage.

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