Lorna Irvine enjoys a different take on 'girl power' in the latest lunchtime theatre offering.
Sabrina Mahfouz was one of Latitude's highlights last year, with her ferocious beat-inspired poetry, spitting out ugly, touching, occasionally hilarious home truths about the sex industry. Clean, her new play for Oran Mor and Traverse Theatre, deals with ''the lack of adventures'' girls have in video games, redressing this by creating three feisty female criminals. Posh, braying Chelsea girl Chloe (Nadia Clifford), sassy working-class Zainab (Samantha Pearl) and enigmatic, steely-eyed Katya (Joanna Kaczynska) may have disparate backgrounds, but are brought together by underworld boss Caitlin (never seen) to pull off a heist.
All of which would be incredibly cheesy were it not for Mahfouz's wonderfully-written script, which is all in rhyme and delivered in the machinegun-rapid, raw style of Mahfouz herself, who provides the intro. The trio of women are excellent, Zainab easily the most likeable and relatable, as she is the only one who seems fallible and doubtful, all insecure swagger and slang, but gets sucked in to the deal against her better judgement. It is choreographed at times like a pop video, with the glam ladies posturing in their 'ghetto fabulous' clothes (wet-look leggings, designer tops) sat on white pillars and freezing like tableaux vivants as each delivers her individual breathless monologue.
The tone is utterly relentless, with its urban witticisms and keen-eyed observations on consumerism (''the people in this club are all white/all suspiciously of the same height'', quips Zainab, surveying a nightclub as she fleeces a businessman) but never really explores in depth crime's true consequences, or the shallowness of capitalism.
Still, it is good to see a fresh take on the James Bond/ Scorsese paradigm, where the women are merely matriarchs or arm candy- despite the dubious 'crime as glamorous and fun' motif. It's 'well dench'. Innit.
RSS