Review by Simon Jenner, September 26 2025
★★★
Thirty years is a long time in pop. But some things never end. And the Spice Girls never quite vanished. That’s certainly true for you if you were part of a Spice Girls Tribute Band, and someone twitches your thread. Liz Tait’s Who Do They Think They Are is directed by her at the Actors, Brighton till September 27, after a run at Shoreham.
Four women slowly meet up in a beaten-up old dance studio. Marion has artlessly summoned them for a dance reunion. Tait specialises in theatre with songs, a third of a way to a musical. Inevitably the other three characters bring baggage they’d been hiding. And there’s dippy Marion to tumble it all out. “One dance routine. One step too far” the blurb shouts. There’s several steps to getting it wrong here, all neatly realised on the diminutive Actor’s stage.
Photo Credit: Liz Tait
Liz Tait Productions is a small powerhouse delivering warm, deftly-tailored dramas written by Tait and performed in the south-east. Tait’s previous show with her new production team A Different Song, about open mic nights and a duo about to change, was praised last year. It also featured songs. Tait’s pedigree goes back to her first play about single parenthood, Kissing It Better mounted at Baron’s Court Theatre. A strong musical component emerged in Here Comes the Bride at St Andrew’s, Waterloo Street in 2010. Amongst other stand-outs the play-in-a-carriage Magnus Volk’s Electric Train of Thought (2011) won five-star reviews and an Outstanding Theatre Fringe Review Theatre Award. No pressure then.
Tait’s particularly good at human flaws and collisions. Though she cites Willy Russell as an inspiration, the writing here might be compared favourably to Tim Firth’s in such shows as Calendar Girls and Sheila’s Island (originally Neville’s Island). Having just lost the mother who’s clearly kept her as a kind of skivvy, distrait Marion (Kate Peltzer-Dunn) pines for the days of her old friends’ tribute band. They mightn’t agree, but then why have they all turned up. Two sisters and a dance teacher complete the quartet. And talking of Quartet, there’s a little of that dynamic too, though the plot’s wholly different.
The folly of resurrecting a show long past its nostalgia-date is only shadowed by why the others would want to accept. Clearly Marion is on to something. The title betrays that slip of identity the years bring, when you’ve bonded with one earlier; even if it’s not really you and depends on three others.
Peltzer-Dunn’s stand-out idiocy is a guilty pleasure, as she bumbles and misreads. She equates people and pets dying, almost, though her own mother’s death is paralleled by the two sisters’ mother dying too. All this releases a kind of posthumous drive (a Thanatos-Eros reverse): grieving as affirmation of life, release from servitude but also a depth-charge of secrets, lies and possessions. The siblings have clearly not met for months.
There’s calibrated reveals, including one extraordinary one about Marion’s life. Before that, the siblings arrive. Sophie Dearlove’s hurt, wary but competent Kim slowly uncoils her worry over her daughter, and the reason for a rathe avaricious pluck at a ring her sister Sarah has, which was originally not their parent’s but.. Pippa’s father’s? Not that anyone but Sarah knows this claim, and since it was a gift from her still-living father, it’s hers. But there’s history even between the friends’ parents. The journey of that ring is one of the bright, satisfying dramatic resolutions of the show, emblematic of so much else. Dearlove’s Kim shows first what seems like avaricious resentment, and there’s quibbling over who got the car free.
Photo Credit: Liz Tait
This show expresses the strain of a generation losing its parents, striking profound notes at how the quartet deal with this. And marks another universal rite of passage. What makes it unique is that this is plural: affecting three protagonists, and in the past. It’s outfall not direct grief we deal with here.
Sally Best’s Sarah is not happy about being here. And doesn’t want to meet the bossy fourth member. Best, who’s down for Gerri Halliwell, is the natural outsider; in more ways than even Kim imagines. Sarah continually dodges her relationship to her husband, and the person she calls isn’t quite whom you’d think. Sarah’s had the burden of disposing of their mother’s assets. Kim’s incredulity that Sarah possesses a laptop suggests Kim’s out of touch with more than her sister; or hasn’t caught up with her. Sarah though in Best’s carefully unpacked portrayal is embracing the new: it’s exhilarating.
Dance teacher Pippa, in bravura moves by the show’s chorographer Helen Rogers, exudes sashaying shapes and bossy pirouettes. Obsessed with allergies and the wellness rituals betraying the OCD of professional perfectionists, she’s short-fused on patience and intent on licking the others into Spiciness.
Spice comes of course in abortive then gradually more promising dance-moves on the tiny stage. Mike Godden’s props are piled high stage-left allowing a natural changing-room behind, as the company shimmy in and out of roles. Shout out for beguiling lighting by Chris Postle: in dance moments there’s a brilliance playing over the ensemble that’d be at home in a larger theatre. After one glorious oldie song, that seems to set things fair, there’s more disaster when the four spice it up. Can Marion ever get her words, let alone shapes right? And there’s Marion’s tambourine. As Rogers glints disapproval and snaps at an allergy-inducer, it seems the show might have lost what bangles it had, around an energy blackout. But.
This is a finely-written show, with tensions wrought individually to a satisfying whole. Recognizable types are given a kick of individuality; the backstories with generational input are original. Though life is hinted at beyond Tait’s invention (always a good sign in a dramatist) a whiff of future strangeness, not just the obligatory happy ending, might prove intriguing. Though a significant improvement by all accounts on the Shoreham venue, this is a small stage. The vocal and acting clarity of this first-rate cast cuts through. The Actors is a heroic fringe institution. Tait and team will surely revive this though at a space suited to them. Pace over the 80 minutes of the play was occasionally hampered by the sheer awkwardness of getting on four performers with vast props. But the final apotheosis makes it the sweeter.
Social Media & Marketing Manager Sarah Agnew, Sound & Lighting Manager Chris Postle, Show & Marketing Photographer Dan Wilson, Ohwa Film Teaser Trailor Videographer/Director David Mills, Prop-Maker Mike Godden, Rehearsal Prompt Chip Peltzer-Dunn.
Thanks to Sophie Dearlove and family for rehearsal space, Nika Obydzinski, London Playwrights, Sheer Drop Theatre and Liz Tait’s writing group.
Photo Credit: Liz Tait
