REVIEW: 'Hot Chicks' at Sherman Theatre, Cardiff
A superb new play highlighting the terrifying underworld of childhood criminal exploitation in South Wales has opened at the Sherman Theatre.
Despite its subject matter, Hot Chicks by Rebecca Jade Hammond is often amusing and always engaging, thanks to the exceptional talent involved both on stage and back stage, as we follow two teenage friends who become entangled in a county lines-style drug operation.
Swansea teenagers Ruby (Londiwe Mthembu) and Kyla (Izzy McCormack John) have a lot in common - unhappy home lives, little interest in school, and dreams of TikTok stardom taking them to a new life in Las Vegas.
They spend their evenings hanging at Cheney's (Richard Elis) fried chicken cafe in Penlan, chatting with the middle-aged owner and posting on their social media, until 30-something Sadie (Rachel Redford) arrives on the scene.
Stylish, rich, and running her own business, she's everything the girls want to be. And soon she persuades them they could have wealth and power too. The three set up a WhatsApp group, the Hot Chicks, creating a bond from which they will soon realise they can never break free.
Ruby and Kyla aren't as streetwise as they make out. They're really frightened children trying to navigate their way through all the challenges of adolesence at a time when, we're reminded, people no longer even look at each other - just their phones.
The girls are happy and excited, though, when they start to earn money by delivering drugs. But the high earnings come with high stakes, and before they know it they're putting themselves in physical danger as well as on the wrong side of the law.
This is a collaboration between Sherman Theatre and Swansea-based creative collective Grand Ambition - and what a successful one!
The talented cast of actors create believable and engaging characters, who we grow to care about very quickly.
And, performed in Sherman's intimate studio space, with the audience on each side of the chicken-shop set, you feel really involved - almost as if you're sitting at a neighbouring table with your chicken and chips, eavesdropping on something you're glad not to be a part of.
Rebecca Jade Hammond's script is perceptive and gripping, with convincing dialogue and dramatic exchanges, which - due to the design - sometimes have the audience's heads turning left and right, as if they were at a verbal tennis match.
Director Hannah Noone drives the story forward at a pace that ensures there's never a dull moment - in fact it's all over in 75 minutes, without an interval.
The set design - the entire action takes place in Cheney's chicken shop - by Hannah Wolfe is thoroughly convincing, helped by the lighting (Katy Morison) and sound (Tic Ashfield).
It's an excellent production in every way - laughs, drama, and characters we care about. But beyond all that, and more importantly, it draws attention to the way some young people's lives are being destroyed in our towns and cities, in cafes and chicken shops just like Cheney's.
And it makes you ponder how different life could turn out for Ruby and Kyla if they had different guidance, ambitions, and role models. Some encouragement, support, and even love from family, school, or youth group could have changed their worlds.
In a deeply moving and brilliantly delivered (👏 Londiwe Mthembu) monologue near the end, Ruby tells Kyla she was always made to feel stupid and never felt safe: "I've never known. What it's like to feel safe. Like proper. Tuck you up in bed. Safe".
Hot Chicks opened on 21 March, and after last night's (Tuesday 25 March) press night, continues until Saturday 5 April. It then moves to Swansea's Grand Theatre from 16 to 25 April.
Review by Andy Weltch
Photos by Kirsten McTernan
We received free tickets for this performance in exchange for an honest review
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