Review: Mean Girls, The Musical, UK Tour, at the Liverpool Empire

If there was one teen comedy that was synonymous with my adolescence, as with most 90s kids, it was Mean Girls. Since it was released in 2004, it has become synonymous with pop culture, with the characters and phrases becoming iconic - or should I say becoming So Fetch! 

In 2018, Mean Girls jumped from the big screen to the stage. And then, back to the silver screen again (but we're not talking about that). Written by original writer Tina Fey, composer Jeff Richmond and lyricist Nell Benjamin, it was popular as you would expect it to be, getting 12 Tony nominations. However, Tony voters said "Here's my right finger" to movie-musical adaptations, in a year which also included Spongebob, and handed all the awards to The Bands Visit instead. 

The West End was planned to have Mean Girls in 2021 - but the pandemic had other plans, and it instead finally played the Savoy Theatre in 2024, playing for a year, and getting a single Olivier nomination for Tom Xander's performance as Damien. Since the Spring of this year, Mean Girls the Musical has been touring across the UK. 

And for the past two weeks, the Plastics have been ruling the Liverpool Empire

For anyone living under a pink rock, Mean Girls follows naïve teenager Cady, as she goes from being home-schooled in Africa, to being thrust into US high school politics. Out of all the cliques and drama, she ends up tumbling into the Plastics, and facing the wrath of Queen Bee Regina George. 

If you think it sounds similar to Heathers, then yes, you would be right, only without the murders. 

For the most part, the stage adaptation does exactly what it says on the tin: it is Mean Girls on stage with some memorable songs, fun choreography, and all the classic moments you know and love. And in that, it falls under the guilty pleasure kind of musical.

But don't be fooled by the pink; this show is still a relevant piece of drama about peer pressure, bullying, and the toxic behaviours that (typically) girls tend to sometimes have. As Janis sings in I'd Rather Be Me, "We're Supposed to all be Ladies, and be nurturing and care; Is that really fair, boys get to fight we have to share"

Mean Girls is perhaps a story which is sadly more relevant than ever, especially with the rise of toxicity online

For the UK production, some lines were tweaked, and new songs replaced others, such as the new I'm Moving Up replacing Stop, and Revenge Party being extended to actually be the Act 1 finale rather than Fearless. And while they were enjoyable and made sense, the lyrics got a bit lost in the vastness of the Liverpool Empire. Any lines from Emily Lane's Cady in particular for me got swallowed up in the acoustics. Which was a shame because these are fantastic singers. 

Lane as Cady really leaned into her awkwardness in the first half. It was easy to believe that she was eager to please both Janice and Damien, and her new "friends" in the Plastics until everything went spiralling out of control. 

Vivian Panka (Dear Evan Hansen) has an incredible voice, and the power needed to belt out Regina's Act 2 explosion of fury World Burn. She had a commanding presence you couldn't help but be intimidated by, and was unexpectedly funny in a sarcastic and yes, very mean way. 

The scene stealers for me however are the supporting characters

Sophie Pourret as the hilariously dim Karen stole every scene she was in, and her big Halloween number Sexy was one of the best moments of the night for me. Kiara Dario (Miss Saigon) completes the trio of Plastics as the restless but wounded Gretchen with such a big heart you couldn't help but feel bad for her. And Jennifer Ellison as Mrs George/Ms Norberry and Mrs George was pulling off a lot of quick changes in quick succession, sometimes in the almost the same scene! 

But the one that stole the show for me was Michael Dean-Wilson who was covering for Damien. Far from being "too gay to function", he lived out every single moment on that stage. The only sad thing for me about Stop being cut was not him being able to see his take on those lines. 

Mean Girls is a sassy, pink night out at the theatre

The run ended in Liverpool yesterday (Halloween), but it continues its tour across the country, including a Christmas season in Birmingham, until ending in January at Newcastle's Theatre Royal.