Review: Seven Against Edinburgh @ Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

A captivating piece of musical theatre, performed by a remarkably adept, young cast.

---

📍 Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
📅 19 – 23 April 2022
🕖 Evenings 7.00pm | Matinees 2:00pm
🕖 Running time (approx.): 90 minutes (no interval)
👥 Writer: Becky Hope-Palmer
👥Directors: Becky Hope-Palmer and Sophie Howell
👥Musical Director/Composer: Sofía Kherroubi García
👥Set and Costume Designer: Mela Cwynar
💰 From £8
🎂 12+
🎭 For access requirements, please contact the team here

The Edinburgh Seven became the first women to be matriculated at a British University under the reign of one Queen Victoria in 1869. Led by Sophia Jex-Blake, who reckoned a post-enlightenment Scotland to be somewhat progressively minded, the seven women initially found majority support amongst the Medical Faculty of Edinburgh University, including James Young Simpson, the father of modern anaesthesia.

Writer, Becky Hope-Palmer, opens her play in the present day, taking seven young women (still in school, though it takes a moment to confirm this in the play) for her protagonists, all members of the band, ‘The Patriarchy Slayers’. Faced with staging a gig comprised of original songs, but with a repertoire of covers, the band have to rustle up a clutch of new material inside a week. The story of the Edinburgh Seven soon arises, and is immediately recognised as a good concept for an album.

Each young actor doubles/triples as a historical figure, plucked from accounts of the Edinburgh Seven’s ground-breaking struggle, temporarily resurrected as our modern-day protagonists learn of them. The music emerges organically, plucked from these historical vignettes, anthems speaking to a struggle for equality which is yet to be completed.

In the present, friendships are tested, ambitions challenged, and ideas interrogated. The show has pace, a coherent narrative, and an entirely enjoyable score — thanks to Hope Palmer & Musical Director/Composer, Sofía Kherroubi García — but is translated to something considerably above average by a fantastic cast of young actors. The central relationship, that between Sasha (Fiza Owais) and Jo (Mia Haden) is well nuanced, the forces threatening to divide them — the death of the former’s mother, the latter’s undiagnosed menstrual condition — illuminate intersecting female experiences, highlighting both the strengths, and strains of close friendship. Their duet is perhaps the most interesting, and musically adept number in the show, not an anthem, but an exploration. The entire cast contributes to the music making, taking to their instruments with confidence, and creating a particularly grand choral sound in unison.

Jade (Alannah Skellett), Isla (Sophie Kayembe), Mac (Orla Bayne), Nell (Isla Campbell) and Gabby (Iona Kellock), plus invaluable ensemble members & musicians Mya Gray, and Ella Williams complete a winning team. Skellett in particular has stage presence which promises much for roles to come.

Back in Victorian Edinburgh , the course of female emancipation never did run smooth, and powerful, regressively minded elements stopped at nothing to deny these undeniably excellent students their graduation. Further, despite support from more equitably minded male students, the women would endure a progressively hostile campaign of intimations from many others, culminating in a riot outside Surgeon’s hall, fomented by a mob intent on preventing their sitting an exam.

That The Edinburgh Seven only finally received degrees from Edinburgh University in 2019, might suggest that the mob won…

Hope-Palmer employs the gradual reveal of the women’s fate to drive much of the fictional drama between the band members, and this may be the one element of the story which doesn’t quite hold true in the age of Wikipedia. Seven Against Edinburgh is certainly based on a very good idea, but were the cast less adept, and confident for their young ages, this slightly forced ignorance would probably jar a little more.

Given the limitations of the Rehearsal Studio venue, the production values are admirable. Directors, Becky Hope-Palmer and Sophie Howell choreograph a slick show, which slips through time, and space with grace and ingenuity. Set and Costume Designer, Mela Cwynar, and Lighting Designer, Laura Hawkins are responsible for a good looking show to boot. Critically for a “Gig” show, it mostly sounds great, though there were a few slips in the mixing which led to momentarily lost voices, and over-dominant instrumentations. It seems likely that Young Director, Olivia McGeachy, and Young Musical Directors: James Kinnear and Sandy Bishop share responsibility for much of the show’s success, so Lyceum Youth Theatre: bravo!

All in all Seven Against Edinburgh is a very interesting, and well conceived show, and all the more impressive for the composure, and abundant energy of the young creatives who make it far more than the sum of its parts. This critic overheard audience in the post-show discussing another all-women musical featuring 6, rather than 7 performers; this critic thinks 7 is better in every respect.

---

Seven Against Edinburgh will play the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh from April 19th – 23rd. For more information, and tickets, click here.