Scream Phone at The Vault Festival, London.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
Swipe Right Theatre Company returns to the Vault Festival following their critically acclaimed sell out run of 2 become 1 in both London and Edinburgh. Kerrie Thomason and Natasha Granger’s new immersive musical Scream Phone is an evening of side-splitting, 80’s flashback entertainment.
First impressions of the space leave you wanting, especially as the Network Theatre venue is hidden away and difficult to find. But the mood is set immediately as the upbeat 80s music switches to the ominous yet stereotypical ‘creepy’ music.
Initially, the over-the-top acting is off putting, but as the show gathers momentum the style wins you over.
The story follows a sleepover of the typical high school girl group that goes by the non-typical name ‘Beaver-Girls’. Think Scream Queens meets Mean Girls.
Granger plays the beautiful Head Cheerleader Melody, the ring leader, who her group of friends are envious of. Thomason is Lizzie, the sexual best friend, and Alexandra Ffion the nerdy one in love with Granger’s character. However, the sleepover is not what it seems.
The hilarious Southern-Belle Mother character, cleverly played by each of the women in the show at various points, gifts Melody with the latest dating phone game (based on the classic DreamPhone) to find out “who has a crush on you”. The game comes with a book of boys that you can choose from, the last page being an empty frame. The ladies jump off the stage and use an audience member to fill this role – the foreign exchange student. It is a moment of immersive brilliance and improvisation.
Each girl thinks that they are the one who has a secret crush and takes turns reminiscing on the guy they think likes them through song parodies based on 80s classics. This is where Ffion steals the show with her incredible voice, singing a ballad about falling in love in the library.
The game turns when you discover that the crush is the same guy all the girls have sung about, the audience member’s character: The Foreign Exchange Student! And then an even darker turn, when the crush is discovered dead in the closet! But who did it?
The show is filled with clever horror puns and moments of comedic brilliance. The American accents are to be applauded as well. Where murder mystery meets a surprising and unexpected plot twist, this show keeps you guessing and laughing until the very end.
Megan Lloyd-Jones
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