ajhlovestheatre

EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN

by Sarah Travis and Richard Stirling

from the novel by Compton MacKenzie 

directed by Paul Foster

Jermyn Street Theatre, London – until 10 August 2025

running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes including interval 

https://www.jermynstreettheatre.co.uk/show/extraordinary-women-a-new-musical-of-the-1920s/

This delightful chamber musical, exquisitely staged and performed, comes as a refreshing palate cleanse after the bombast of most current West End tuners. Extraordinary Women is inspired by Compton MacKenzie’s satirical novel set on a fictionalised Capri in 1919 where swathes of international bohemians and artists decamped (and “camp”is the operative word) to escape the horrors of WW1. Sirene, as the author renamed the idyllic island, is a hotbed of lesbian dalliances, intrigue and rivalries professional and personal, and Sarah Travis and Richard Stirling’s musical has a cast of six women and just one man.

Presumably inspired by the name MacKenzie gave his reimagined Capri in the 1928 novel, librettist Stirling has added the nifty framing device of having four Sirens of Greek mythology – Parthenope, Ligeia, Leucosia, and the especially relevant Sappho – as commentators on, and controllers of, the narrative, also swooping in to play actual women embroiled in the story. If initially it’s a little confusing having Grecian mythical figures in an Italianate setting, there is something peculiarly English anyway about these arch, campy, trilling glamazons swanning about in flowing robes like a sort of chimerical Mitford sisters. 

Monique Young, Jasmine Kerr, Sophie-Louise Dann and Amira Matthews make an irresistible team, displaying spectacular voices and impeccable comic timing. “I’m not a siren, I’m an icon” grandly asserts Matthews’s commanding Sappho near the beginning, and the collective looks of exasperation and disdain from the other three could freeze mercury. Dann is an absolute scream as the comically uptight English governess and the volatile French diva that Leucosia deigns to personify in human form, and gets to unleash her formidable voice on an overwrought pastiche operatic aria. Young, a particularly lovely stage presence, does accomplished work in the contrasting roles of a fretful Russian emigrée and a go-getting American vulgarian. The entire quartet is fabulous.

The story, such as it is, centres on an ongoing liaison between impecunious but impossibly glamorous Italian-Swiss adventuress Rosalba (a sensational Amy Ellen Richardson) and dowdy, sensitive rich Brit Aurora (Caroline Sheen). Their relationship is conveyed in a series of vignettes with little in the way of a through-line so it’s not easy to get particularly emotionally involved, but both joint-lead actresses are tremendously impressive. Sheen invests Aurora (or Rory as she’s known to her Sapphic chums) with a bittersweet charm but also a steeliness borne of the self- reliance of a woman who, despite her privilege, is always made to feel unequal to her contemporaries. She delivers a beautiful rendition of a second act ballad that usefully fleshes out her character.

Rosalba is the showier role and Richardson, attired for half the show like a Blue Angel-era Dietrich, is an absolute knockout. She nails the almost alarming self-confidence of a great beauty accustomed to every human she comes across falling at her feet, but also the constant low-level desperation of the chancer acutely aware that her luxuriant lifestyle is mostly smoke and mirrors. Extravagantly funny but multi-layered, with top flight vocals and dancing, this is a heavenly musical comedy star performance with an intriguingly dark edge.

Another winning turn comes from Jack Butterworth, a young leading man with a unique combination of classic showbiz brio and earthy charm, playing all the male roles. From disapproving, thickly accented Italian policeman to stiff-upper-lip English army captain to Daffodil, Rory’s touchingly goofy Julian Clary-esque gay sidekick, and a few others besides, Butterworth is wonderfully specific, pulling off some head-spinningly fast costume changes. He’s a real treat.  

Paul Foster’s production, scintillatingly choreographed by Joanna Goodwin, is fleet of foot and light of heart, but with a satisfying attention to detail and willingness to engage with the more sombre aspects of the story. It looks ravishing too, from the gold and azure elegance of Alex Marker’s simple set to the glittering, opulent costumes by Carla Joy Evans. Sam Sommerfield’s orchestrations for piano and guitar/bass are straightforward but enjoyable, and superbly played, crucially never overwhelming the all-important lyrics. The acting repeatedly strikes the perfect balance between sincerity and knowing camp, and the whole thing is so well paced and entrancing that you almost don’t notice that the episodic script very slightly outstays its welcome in an over-extended first half.

The music by Sarah Travis, lilting and often lovely, vamps and shimmers, conjuring up a lost world of endlessly flowing champagne, gleeful bad behaviour and low key melancholy. Paired with Stirling’s witty, literate words, the whole jolly thing sometimes feels like a vintage throwback to the small scale British musicals of Sandy Wilson and Julian Slade, where class, eccentricity and fantasy collided with similar comic aplomb. 

All Extraordinary Women lacks is a couple of really big tunes, and a sense of palpable erotic heat between the bed-hopping, romantically entwined women. But it’s a beguiling, defiantly unfashionable mixture of outrageous and elegiac, crafted with infinite class and intelligence by a terrific team. Jermyn Street is a tiny house, you’d be advised to get your tickets now, this deserves to be a summer hit.