Union Theatre – until 8 May 2026
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
2**
Billed as part sci-fi glitch and part feminist riot, Flyology sadly doesn’t live up to either expectation.
The premise of Tamiko Dooley and Cathy Farmer’s new musical has enormous potential – it just needs a reboot to polish the book and decide exactly what Flyology 2.0 wants to be. At the moment, the sci-fi element feels like an idea that goes nowhere and the fierce feminists, despite the three talented actors belting their words brilliantly, are not loud enough in their deeds.
The villain of the piece is tech entrepreneur Callum (Charlie Renwick). The audience are watching a test of his AI system that will ensure order by erasing emotions and chaos, caused in Callum’s opinion by females. A glitch means that three of the great disrupters, Emmeline Pankhurst (Aishling Jones), Ethel Smyth (Ashleigh Cassidy) and Ada Lovelace (Meg Abbott) are pulled into the simulation and ruin Callum’s launch and vision.
For this idea to work, the three women should have an antagonist that is tech savvy and casually misogynistic rather than Callum’s manbaby personality. He rails against over-emotional women whist stamping his feet as things go awry, and is a cartoonish representation of fragile masculinity, with a side order of mummy AND daddy issues. I am not sure if the writers have young children and have watched a lot of GoJetters, but they have created the live action version of Grandmaster Glitch. Renwick makes the most of his comedic moments but Callum starts with the dial at eleven and has nowhere left to go throughout the show.
With such a pathetic specimen of male energy, the three women look strong just standing quietly. And that is a problem as there is not much representation of activism and making noise. Even the way they finally break the simulation is neither shocking nor meaningful. So much more could be included to make these characters powerful and dangerous. As the book stands, most mention of their feminist and intellectual activities is included as they are introduced and after perfunctory chat about rights and life expectations in their different time periods, they then proceed to wander about in the simulation until Edith has a brainwave to add chaos to disrupt the system.
While Cathy Farmer’s book needs an overhaul, the music and lyrics are more polished. Tamiko Dooley plays the piano to accompany her soaring melodies, with wonderful harmonies from the talented and committed cast, but perhaps the women could have more individual and recognisable musical themes running through their numbers rather than reprising lines.
At 90 minutes with an interval, there is scope for a deeper dive into what makes the women tick and it would be wonderful to see them ACTUALLY disrupting, rather than their presence simply being the problem. This feels exactly like Callum’s worldview, so may well be what the writers wanted to achieve, but these women should be making much more noise.