When Bad Girls was axed by ITV last year it bowed off the screen in triumph
– an eight-year run of 107 episodes, eight awards, continuing sales all
around the world, and still, by today’s standards, getting a very
respectable audience of 4.7 million. But as the hour comes round for it to
be reborn on the West End stage, I have to remind myself of those scary
times when it was first broadcast back in May 1999, to be met with a pelting
from most critics and downwardly spiralling ratings that today would lead to
a swift mercy killing by the schedulers.
Obviously we knew that we were taking a bit of a risk with Bad Girls. A
drama set inside a women’s prison, with its combination of emotion and
anarchic humour, and a lesbian love story at its core, it was never going to
fit the usual prime-time genres. Luckily, we had a first series of ten
episodes, long enough to find our core audience and to turn the show into a
cult hit.
When people try to wrestle with the concept of Bad Girls as a musical the
same questions always dominate. Do you need to know the TV series? Does it
have the same cast as on the telly? Is it serious or is it funny? Well, the
short answers to those questions are: no, no and both. Striking the right
balance of light and shade in the show is crucial, but the variety of
emotional tone is exactly what makes Bad Girls special. And that’s why we
felt it was perfect territory for a musical, where comedy, drama and pathos
are all heightened even further.
Like the TV series, the musical is set in the fictional HMP Larkhall, with an
ensemble of the original core characters from both sides of the bars and the
same edgy mix of emotional tone. The marketing will tell you that it’s loads
of fun – and it is – but it’s also an indictment of our penal system.
The prison world of Bad Girls gave us a contemporary milieu with a stock of
big characters in a classic “us and them” conflict. The rich language of
prison slang is fertile territory for new lyrics to refresh the traditional
rules of perfect rhyme. We were certain that we could create a musical from
this material that could stand alone in its own right and be accessible to
those unacquainted with the TV show.
Five years ago, when we first conceived the stage show, new musicals in the
West End were pretty thin on the ground. The resurgence of musical comedy in
the past few years bolstered our plans, although it’s still rare to find a
musical that is original, British and contemporary, never mind feminist.
Our first challenge was deciding which characters and stories to feature. We
knew that the essential dynamics included the original two officer/inmate
pairings: Wing Governor Helen Stewart’s romantic duel with the rebellious
lifer Nikki Wade contrasted with the more sleazy relationship of our two
baddies, Principal Officer Jim Fenner and the psycho bitch Shell Dockley.
The oppositions of those characters pretty much dictated the outline of the
story: we needed the Helen and Nikki love story and at the same time the
downfall of Jim Fenner.
In the TV show, Jim had been stabbed in the belly with a broken bottle by
Shell, had a psychotic breakdown and was eventually killed with a shard of
ice in the neck. In the musical we had the freedom to find a juicy new way
to give him his dues that would bring the power battle between him and Helen
to the kind of satisfying resolution that we’d had to deny our TV fans, for
the usual reasons of actor availability and broadcaster diktat.
But it was never going to be an option to cast the musical “as seen on TV”, so
we had to find out if and how we could distil the essence of the characters
so that they could be successfully transferred to the stage by other actors
who could sing. Obviously in theatre we’re well used to different actors
giving different interpretations of a particular role, but in television the
two can appear to become inextricably linked.
We further complicated the matter by casting some of our TV actors in
different roles from those they played on screen. For instance, Helen
Stewart is now played by Laura Rogers, who was previously seen on the inmate
side of the bars, and Nicole Faraday, formerly in the part of the porn
actress Snowball Merriman, is now playing Shell Dockley.
When we staged a workshop performance at the New Players Theatre in London,
with only two of the TV cast playing their original characters – Helen
Fraser as Body-bag and Maria Charles as Noreen Biggs – the response of an
audience of Bad Girl sfans was overwhelmingly positive. There was just one
complaint: that Nikki Wade should have short dark hair . . .
Viewers’ expectations need to be balanced against the more pressing desire to
create something fresh and original. Impersonations of other actors’
performances would have been dull, but we did have to consider carefully the
extent to which our stage cast should match the look of the TV cast. With
characters such as the Two Julies, it was key to the original conception
that they were a pair of prostitutes who deliberately styled themselves to
try and look alike, even though one was small and the other tall – and we’ve
kept to that in the musical.
With Nikki Wade, however, the key thing is that our hero figure and romantic
lead has to have a quality about her that we can really believe would turn
Helen Stewart’s head and throw her into emotional disarray. She basically
has to have an irresistible look and demeanour that any one of us – male,
female, straight, gay – will find attractive. And we proved that being a
cropped brunette really isn’t an essential part of that recipe.
The character of Yvonne Atkins appeared towards the end of the first TV series
and made an immediate impact. Her opening exchange with Sylvia Hollamby is
the same in the musical. Sylvia: “You might be famous on the outside,
Atkins, but you won’t be in here.” Yvonne: “Wanna bet?”
Yvonne is powerful, charismatic and clever. In the musical, played by the
fabulous Sally Dexter, she arrives with a coat stashed like a mini bar and
shares out the booze with all her new chums. Of course we do know that in
real life it’s unlikely that she’d get through security like that – even
with the threat of a visit from her gangster husband Charlie – but this is
one of those moments where we do allow ourselves to enjoy the fact that it’s
a musical, and the booze puts the women in the mood for Yvonne’s big party
number, The A-List.
With its TV incarnation now at an end, Bad Girls: The Musical can establish
its own identity and become a standalone show in its own right. And fans of
the show will be able to enjoy seeing Helen Fraser fulfil her lifelong
ambition to be in a West End musical.
On top of that they’ll also get Jim Fenner and his fantasy chorus-line of
dancing prison officers, a death, a riot, a love story, some serious issues
and some very serious fun, with an ending that wipes away all memories of
Yvonne’s corpse left rotting in the old hanging cell at the end of series
five. Just a typical day at HMP Larkhall, then . . .
Fenner’s a goner – and other top Bad Girls moments
Yvonne’s death Evil Jim Fenner traps Yvonne Atkins in the hanging
cell beneath Larkhall – she thinks it’s an escape route. She dies horribly
of suffocation or starvation or dehydration.
Nikki and Helen reunite The fans’ favourite lesbian coupling of seasons
one to three, the wing governor (Helen) and prisoner (Nikki), finally get
together after Nikki’s release. The nation cheers.
Bodybag’s trip Sylvia dances the night away (unwittingly) on E.
Also, inmate Shell Dockley sets fire to Bodybag’s (alive) husband while he
is incarcerated in a coffin.
Fenner’s death Larkhall’s much-hated officer is stabbed to death
with a sharpened blade of ice – yes, really – by Julie J.
“It’s a miracle” Kate O’Mara leaps from her
wheelchair, cured suddenly of her “paralysis”.
Bad Girls previews at the Garrick Theatre from August 16 and opens on
September 12. Box office: 0870 0400083/0870 8901104
