School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play review – one of the funniest shows in London

Something truly life enhancing happens when mass populist entertainment fuses successfully with an ingenious creative idea. So it proves with School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play which starts off as a refreshing West African riff on an iconic movie franchise but becomes something startlingly its own. Interestingly, it’s also inspired by a true story of possible corruption in a Ghanaian beauty pageant.

The original Off-Broadway run of Jocelyn Bioh’s 2017 comedy went down so well that Manhattan’s MCC Theatre were obliged to give it a return season the following year. Watching this UK premiere, in a boisterously entertaining new production by Monique Touko at the Lyric Hammersmith, it’s not hard to see why. This must be one of the most laugh-out-loud funny things on any current London stage. It’s a raucous crowdpleaser with heart, edge and some fairly pithy things to say about the perception of physical attractiveness, especially as pertaining to young Black women.

School Girls; or, The African Mean Girls Play is set in 1986 Ghana at Aburi Girls Boarding School where a Regina George or Heather Chandler-like Queen Bee, Paulina (a fabulously nasty Tara Tijani), holds sway over a quartet of cowed, unwilling acolytes (“we just don’t want her coming after us”). In a plot development lifted in part from the movie Mean Girls, which in turn was inspired by the film (now a musical) Heathers, the apple cart is upset by the arrival from the US of biracial new girl Ericka who looks set to steal Paulina’s crown as most beautiful, most talented and most likely to win a coveted place in the upcoming Miss Ghana pageant, aided considerably by her having significantly paler skin.

As its cinematic predecessors demonstrate, this is not a particularly original basic premise, but it surely is a lot of fun. Bioh’s sparky script is lent uniqueness though by its African setting, the realisation that teenagers all over the planet share the same concerns, issues and neuroses (fitting in, feeling attractive, looking current, succeeding in their studies), and, especially, the way these young women feel they fit into the international global village.

The addition of Ericka, who Anna Shaffer imbues with an apple-pie niceness but an intriguing tough streak, exposes Paulina’s insecurities and emboldens her “crew” to question her imperious authority. Tijani unravels most satisfyingly, and it’s fascinating, and surprisingly moving, to see her go from potty-mouthed monster in school uniform to a figure of real pathos. The script rushes somewhat over the ways that Paulina’s cronies turn on her, but it does lead to some riveting, shocking slanging matches as well as the most blissfully funny moments in the show, including an excruciating version of Whitney’s “The Greatest Love of All” with the schoolgirls attempting to upstage each other as they audition for the talent scout from the Miss Ghana contest.

Beyond the plentiful humour and endearing, occasionally bonkers characters, the play makes serious points too. It addresses the bizarre notion that paler skin is somehow more desirable in the notion of Black beauty, and demonstrates the distressing side effects of unregulated treatments to lighten the complexion. It also looks at the way American culture has seeped all over the globe. Being set in the 1980s, the young women don’t have the exposure to the internet to either validate them or to fuel their insecurities and discontentments, which adds to the pressure cooker environment discernible amongst all the laughter. Ultimately, it’s also a heartwarming testimony to female solidarity…eventually.

If Bioh’s writing and Touko’s production have little truck with subtlety, what they capture with flamboyant relish is the hyperkinetic, noisy, primary coloured intensity with which teenagers connect with the world and each other. The women represented here make for delicious theatrical company, and a fine team of young actresses deliver delightfully vivid performances.

Bola Akeju brings sublime comic instincts to the slightly awkward Mercy (note the way she stands way too close to new girl Ericka and craftily sniffs at her hair), permanently in a semi-strop but touchingly caring when it comes to her less sharp cousin Gifty (hugely likeable Francesca Amewudah-Rivers). Heather Agyepong is brilliant as the fiercely intelligent friend who causes maximum damage when she decides she’s not putting up with Paulina’s nonsense any longer, and Jadesola Odunjo makes a lovely professional stage debut as the unfortunate Nanna, forever on the receiving end of Paulina’s more withering put downs, until she turns the tables most pleasingly.

The older generation is represented by Alison A Addo’s headmistress, a marvellous amalgam of stern and sass, able to cut through the rambunctious high spirits with real authority but also kindness: she’s a fascinating, multi-layered figure. Then there’s Deborah Alli’s regal former beauty contest winner Eloise Amponsah – her hilarious, persistent assertion “I am Miss Ghana 1966” sounding simultaneously like a brag, a calling card and a threat – who has her own unscrupulous reasons for wanting to find her latest successor. Did I mention that this is also one of the campest shows in town?!

The Ghanaian accented delivery has a staccato musicality and force that enhances the comedy but also, on press night, usefully cuts through the (often glorious) vocal contributions from an enraptured audience. This is emphatically not a play to sit and endure in silence, but to joyfully engage with, and everything in Touko’s production, from the choreographed changes to Paul Wills’ colourful sets and the reveals of some of Kinnetia Isidore’s outrageous costumes to the deployment of Shiloh Coke’s uplifting music, seems geared up for that. All in all, it’s a really smashing  80 minutes in the theatre, and a sparkling new addition to the roster of London’s summer must-sees.