★★★★★

Georgia Fullerton’s Top Girls was like a cocktail – as strong and punchy as they come. The show was funny, drunk, dark and dangerous and, in Fullerton’s words, “not something you watch passively”. The acting was outstanding, giving dazzling life to Caryl Churchill’s play, which shows life to be a lot more complicated than “anyone can do anything if they’ve got what it takes”.

We meet Marlene, an eighties employment agent, who hosts an eclectic dinner party of historical and mythological guests. Victorian explorer Isabella Bird (Imogen Whelan) was made tipsy and strange, thirteenth-century Japanese noblewoman Lady Nijo (Juliet Wong) snappy and arrogant, Pope Joan (Mina Strevens) hilarious, and Boccaccio’s patient Griselda (Charlotte Cutting) a soft-speaking internalised misogynist. Dull Gret (Sophia O’Callaghan) had the audience laughing with single words and movements. And, of course, Marlene (Mia Lomer) held everything together with pursed lips and power: “To our courage, and the way we changed our lives, and our extraordinary achievements.”

Each actress brought something very different to the stage. The play mastered the art of allowing dialogue to cut naturally through and over one another, giving it life and realism. My eyes and ears were everywhere. The costumes by Amy Davies were brilliantly rich and varied, while subtle changes in lighting, as blues and greens crept in, made the heady unravelling increasingly surreal and sickening. This time-bending cocktail was intoxicating.

The scene managed its tension carefully – spilling over with Gret’s (O’Callaghan’s) hellish speech on the table, the clatter of cutlery, or an unexpected vomit. It rose and fell as everything started to get grim, and the audience lapped it up.

The second half introduced Marlene’s sister Joyce (Strevens) and the child Angie (May Daws). This was a troubled, exhausted family, played just right. Daws embodied Angie’s tragic naivety and erratic mania; we felt both pity and fear. She gave a seamless performance throughout, alongside her friend Kit (Charlotte Cutting). The stage became bad-mouthed, rough and uneasy.

Marlene’s employment agency provided a jarring contrast: cut-throat and competitive. Agents Nell (Izzy Fryer) and Win (Imogen Whelan) were captivating with their quick-talking, big hair, bright green tights and lurid makeup. Being an ambitious ‘top girl’, it seems, means being “not very nice”. It also means being told “you’re not natural”, as Mrs Kidd (Mary Alcott) rages.

And if, like Angie, you’re “a bit thick, a bit funny” and “useless at school”, it is much more complicated, contrary to Marlene’s belief, than being “lazy and stupid”. This distinction is crucial: Churchill forces us to look beyond the language of individual ambition and recognise the structural inequalities that determine who gets to succeed in the first place. Without it, Marlene’s triumph might look like an uncomplicated victory; instead, we are made to confront the people and possibilities left behind. Sat among fellow Cambridge students, the cry was stark from a place where “there isn’t much here”.

The disparate sisters Marlene and Joyce come into uncomfortably close contact. Marlene cannot avoid what she most dislikes: “I don’t like messy talk about what a hard time we’re all having.” The clash that ensues gives the play its final calamitous climax. Lomer’s stiff-talking, Thatcher-esque Marlene is a masterpiece; Strevens’ despairing Joyce is a triumph. They gleam in this show, leaving ‘student’ theatre well and truly behind.

Fullerton’s vision manages the fine details with professionalism, bringing to life a diverse range of characters and their lives. It is a seamless success. Her production – teeming with acting talent – is neither heavy nor didactic, but funny, sharp-tongued and difficult. This play has a lot to say. Go and listen for yourself.

Edited by Zoe Charlotte Green