Review: Gwenda’s Garage – The Musical, Southwark Playhouse (Borough)

Sheffield has a proud tradition of creative innovation, especially in the field of home-grown musicals rooted in the history and culture of this great city. Gwenda’s Garage joins that long list of musical collaborations destined for success in their home city and beyond. Hot from a successful run at The Crucible, the show has raced down the M1 to regale audiences here in London. And we are indeed lucky as the energy and joy are palpable from the six-strong all-female cast, brilliantly supported by a tight five-piece band. 

The show’s authenticity comes from being inspired by a true story of defiance against all the odds.

Three brave women have trained as car mechanics, a thing unheard of in early 1980s’ Britain, only to find that no male garage owner will employ them. So what do they do? They set up their own outfit, of course! Naming their business after Gwenda Stewart, a pioneering 1930s racing driver, the women find the going is tough, with the prevailing prejudice. Because these women are also out and proud, and are not going to let their rights be taken from them. Political involvement and sisterly solidarity mean banners are written and marches joined. The owner, Carol, played in a centred and beautiful way by Eva Scott), is the one trying to keep the show on the road, while Terry (Sia Kiwa) rumbustiously enjoys her freedom despite going out with fellow worker Bev (Nancy Brabin-Platt). The team is completed by young apprentice, Dipstick, whose ‘slow-on-the-uptakeness’ is brilliantly and comically captured by Lucy Mackay. One day, in pops Feona (Georgina Coram), a middle-class, married art teacher who needs her car looking at but who returns persistently as fascination grows with these women, and ignites something within her.

Despite some saggy moments in a longish second half, the story gets its first intimate obstacle when Bev decides she wants to foster children. Terry can’t fathom this and is further alienated by Bev when she feels forced to deny her lesbianism to increase her chances as a foster parent. On a grander scale, the show gets its major dramatic tension from the politics of the time. Thatcher’s pro-family stance and growing anti-gay campaign with Clause 28 and book-banning in libraries has to be stood up to and resistance mobilised. Sound all too familiar, folks? I give you Trump’s USA, Putin’s Russia and Orban’s Hungary.  But there is light relief from a selection of boorish males, played in hilarious cross-dressed cameos by the band’s excellent drummer, Liz Kitchen, who embodies the sexism facing Gwenda’s Garage. 

Val Regan’s music is catchy, though at times straightforward, while Nicky Hallett’s lyrics work wittily and neatly. When the solos and duets start, the music gets more layered, and the actors can show off their voices. There is excellent singing all round, with Terry’s Family of One, Carol’s Holding it Together and a particularly fine and moving duet from Bev and Terry in Meet Me on the Bridge. The company numbers get the house rocking with their clap-along rousing beat. Direction maintains staging and relationships well, but above all, it is the cast who engage us, with humour, solidarity, integrity and downright joy at being proud to be true to oneself and one’s principles. Their commitment, and the story they tell, sweeps us up and drives us on to a defiant, uplifting end. Grab yourself a ticket and book yourself a service at Gwenda’s Garage!

Writer: Nicky Hallett
Composer & Musical Director: Val Regan
Director & Dramaturg: Jelena Budimir
Set: Sarah Jane Booth
Sound: Joe Dines
Lighting: Callum MacDonald
Costume: Becky Graham
Producers: Out of The Archive & Sheffield Theatres

Gwenda’s Garage: The Musical plays at Southwark Playhouse, Borough
until Saturday 29 November