Shout! The Mod Musical – Upstairs at the Gatehouse

SHOUT! The Mod Musical continues at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London until 20 July 2025.

Star rating: three stars ★ ★ ★ ✩ ✩

Dating from 2004, Phillip George & David Lowenstein’s musical features five unnamed, unrelated young women, each designated by a colour. So they’re effectively stereotypes from different parts of the country.

As they work their way through the 1960s with their different personalities and worries we hear a lot of snapshot stories but there is no plot in this episodic piece and that’s a flaw.

On the other hand, under Joseph Hodges’ direction and Jay Gardner’s choreography this revival fizzes with energy. The show uses every inch of the Gatehouse’s potentially awkward rectangular space to good effect.

And I was delighted to see (and hear) such a fine on-stage, all-female band led by Gabrielle Ball on keys.

Each character writes anguished letters to a magazine called SHOUT! Then agony aunt, Gwendolyn Holmes, voiced by Pippa Winslow, dishes out hilariously banal advice. I’m old enough to remember Evelyn Holmes in a magazine called Woman and I can assure you that Gwendolyn’s pronouncements are only a light exaggeration. Running a tidy home, always looking nice for your husband, cooking spectacular dishes and doing what he wants are the secrets to happy and fulfilled marriage – we were told.

Essentially a juke box musical, SHOUT! The Mod Musical packs in a huge amount of music often originally performed by mould-breaking 1960s women including Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Cilla Black and Nancy Sinatra and composed by every songwriting icon of the era.

There is passionate commitment in the excellent singing of all five cast members to denote a wide range of moods (Gabrielle Cummins, Isabella Mason, Lauren Allan, Lauren Bimson, Madeleine Doody). ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin’’, for example, fits the narrative, such as it is, and is a fast-paced show-stopper.

Capturing late 1960s fashion must have been fun too. James Davies, for instance, has designed perfectly observed hair and wigs from neat bobs to backcombed bouffant protrusions and cascading curls. And I loved the nostalgic mini dresses and boots.

It is a pity, though, that this show tries to address quite so many issues because it explores few of them fully. We ricochet dizzyingly from abortion rights, to open gay-ness, and from the pill to female orgasm (or lack of it) among many other events, developments and anxieties.

Moreover, the rather drawn-out ending does this show few favours.

Fay Samways