Festival Theatre, Malvern – until 20th September 2025
Reviewed by Courie Amado Juneau
4****
The Party Girls is in intriguing title for a show and I must confess, until I read the programme, I didn’t really know what the evening’s entertainment had in store. I don’t think I’d even heard of the Mitford girls before now…
The story concerns the aforementioned (Mitford) sisters and the rather colourful time they had during the seismic pre-war (that’s World War 2) years to the late 60’s. While the world was dealing with the looming long, very dark shadow of fascism, the sisters were grappling with their own private wars raging in their hearts, minds and stately home…
Nancy (the eldest, played by Kirsty Besterman) poured her heart and professional focus into her writing whilst Diana (Elisabeth Dermot Walsh) and Unity (Ell Potter) were infatuated with fascism (Diana with future husband Oswald Moseley and Unity with Hitler). Jessica “Decca” was a died in the wool Communist – so you can imagine the familial ructions that caused. Debo (Flora Spencer-Longhurst), youngest of the clan, flitted about like a cranefly in a fan.
The central character and focus of the tale was Decca who was brought to life in barnstorming fashion by Emma Noakes. There was a lot for this talented actress to get her teeth into – dealing with her new life in America as a single mum and the sadly familiar tale of not knowing for certain what had become of her husband, reported a casualty of war. All this while dealing with her unfolding feelings for colleague Bob. The scene in which she confronted Diana about her politics and loyalty to Moseley were where the real fireworks too place in a scene that positively leapt off the stage. She and her potential new man made a handsome and authentic couple. Joe Coen (playing Bob Treuhaft) was charming, witty and charismatic as Bob.
Although the story was an interesting one, I did find that the way it was presented a bit jarring. Playwright Amy Rosenthal avoided a chronological reading in favour of one that jumped back and forth between decades. Artfully done but this made it a little difficult to keep up with the plot at times (especially in the first half when also attempting to remember which sister was which and deal with the slang they called each other – and parents etc). I did feel the play ended abruptly – as if we should have remained in our seats for a third act that never happened. Although I found this a bit of an unsatisfactory ending, it did show that the play had captured my attention and I wanted to know more about how it all panned out with the sisters etc. So, in that respect, the writer had done a rather marvellous job I guess.
All that said, it was a fantastic show which produced many talking points which are tragically relevant today (in many ways, more than ever). The sets were inventive, the acting was fabulous from each and every actor, there was plenty of humour among the weighty issues… So, all in all, this is certainly an entertaining and worthwhile play to see, having much to commend it to audiences. I may well see it myself a second time too.