Gwenda’s Garage review – an unruly celebration of Sheffield’s female mechanical activists | platform

THere’s something to know about Nikki Hallett and Val Regan’s new musical. It’s a show grounded in recent history, and at the same time uncomfortable with its status as, as one character quips, “legacy.” In telling the story of a pioneering 1980s Sheffield garage run by three female mechanics, Gwenda’s Garage celebrates these women while refusing to turn them into calcified historical figures.

As the performers tell the audience, this is an incomplete and incomplete version of the actual Gwenda’s Garage version, with fictional characters instead of real mechanics. The musical is as much about the heroines’ activism against the backdrop of Tory rule and the foreground of Section 28 as it is about the garage itself, with rousing songs like We Had a Scam and Welcome to Sheffield creating an infectious atmosphere of collective feminist and queer protest.

The beating heart of the series is the relationship between coworkers Bev (Nancy Brabin Platt) and Terry (Siya Kiwa). While Bev wants to settle down and become a mother, Terry is, as she sings, “a family of one,” resistant to monogamy and relentless in her activism. Their experiences underscore what is at stake here, as Bev is threatened with the removal of her adopted children and Terry struggles with the double oppression of being black and gay in an overwhelmingly white women’s movement. They both have to grapple with when to remain quiet, when to compromise, and when to speak out.

Besides this complexity, other characters are lightly drawn. While Eva Scott performs with real warmth, the kind and capable garage boss Carol remains a bit unexplored; Likewise, the charming and clueless apprentice mechanic Dipstick (Lucy MacKay). The quirky addition of Feona (Georgina Coram) allows for exposition and some crowd-pleasing gags at the southerners’ expense, but her journey from client to ally to full member of the sisterhood feels rushed and flimsy.

Jelena Budimir’s booming production is rough around the edges in a way that suits the moody spirit of garage. Not a straightforward history play, Gwenda’s Garage is a wild, exhilarating tale of change, focusing on the present as much as the past.