In every production I have seen since Daisy Pulls It Off first graced our theatres 30 years ago, Grangewood School for Girls has nearly always concentrated itself on the main school hall complete with honours board, family portraits and grand staircase.
Looking back, I have always seen it at larger theatres with a stage, wings and fly tower of more generous dimensions than the restrictions at the Watermill.
So it is delightfully charming that it is not only Daisy that pulls it off in this production but that the Watermill proves once again that the best things come in small packages.
Chloe Lamford’s ‘topping’ set design creates an energy of girlish glee even during scene changes and Caroline Leslie’s spiffing direction gives a constant flurry of schoolgirl activity.
The cast are sublimely divine as the well-to-do girls from Claire Brown’s sporty Alice to Amy Downham’s beastly Sybil and Jaimi Barbakoff’s weasly Monica with Holly Goss as head girl Clare, Rosie Jones as excitable Trixie, Rosalind Steele as Belinda / Winnie and Emerald O’Hanrahan perfectly cast as elementary school pupil Daisy Meredith.
Liz Marsh and Robert Maskell run the school with a myriad of different and very entertaining teaching staff.
One of the highlights must surely be Daisy’s daredevil rescue of Sybil and Monica from the cliff ledge, where the Watermill comes into its own by utilising its unique performance space to a rousing round of applause from the audience. “Jubilate!” as Trixie would say.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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