Women only

A triple thick dose of chicklit at Hampstead. Amelia Bullmore’s good-natured comedy has three girls sharing a student house in 1983. Those were the days. Back then we received ‘grants’ to attend university, i.e., we were paid to look occupied, like job-seekers and politicians. I’m glad to report that Bullmore accurately evokes the culture and language of the time. Just a couple of blunders. We didn’t say ‘PJs’ to mean pyjamas. And ‘what is she like?’, to express affectionate exasperation, didn’t arrive till the 1990s. The girls don’t smoke, nor do they mention Greenham, which is odd, but the play wishes to focus on their emotional and professional development.

The three are nicely drawn and convincingly played: there’s the chilly feminist (Gina McKee), the tough lesbian (Tamzin Outh-waite) and the motherly nymphomaniac (Anna Maxwell Martin). Tragedy and joy are doled out with the random heartlessness of real life and with no regard to personal merit. The nympho gets pregnant, the feminist lands a plum job in New York and the lesbian is raped at knifepoint. After college they scatter apart, and keep in touch fitfully.

Then one of the girls is killed in a car smash. This knocks the stuffing out of the play and costs it much fun and warmth. A big mistake. The surviving pair spend the final half-hour swapping catty, humourless speeches about their lost sister. These rancourous exchanges ring false because the girls are, after all, merely old friends, not married partners or apostles of some barmy cult devoted to their past. That aside, the play succeeds on its own terms, and director Anna Mackmin matches the script’s ambitions and delivers a big, golden-hearted girlie soap opera.

Hampstead Theatre, under Ed Hall’s management, has rediscovered its talent for finding West End hits.