| Hot Chicks- Praise for Rebecca Jade Hammond Drama |
At the Sherman |
| Grand Ambition & Sherman: Review Compilation , Sherman and Swansea Grand , May 15, 2025 |
Rebecca Jade Hammond is known for the Chippy Lane Company which produced Scratch Shorts Nights in London. An evening at the prestigious Theatre 503 was reviewed 18th February 2018. Katie Elin-Salt, Chelsey Gillard and Dan Jones were to be seen in the audience. ‘Blue’, described by The Guardian as ‘intricate, touching and funny’ and ‘Right Where We Left Us’ were published by Methuen Drama. The company also produced podcast interviews with Lucy Rivers and Tim Price. The play “Hot Chicks” had a subject that was contemporary and bold, the organised crime groups that manipulate young people for County Lines drug distribution. The reviewers liked what they saw. * * * * From the Guardian: “What a punchy play. Rebecca Jade Hammond has written a disturbing county lines drama that questions our stereotypes of groomers, itemises insidious techniques of manipulation and considers the neglect that leaves children vulnerable. But Hammond has also written a boisterous comedy about teenage girls who take feet pics for OnlyFans and share TikTok dance crazes and Las Vegas pipe dreams in a Swansea chicken shop. As director Hannah Noone’s well-calibrated, 75-minute production switches from humour to terror, the rush from a soundtrack featuring Charli xcx is replaced by gnawing silence. “Hot Chicks is the name of the WhatsApp group that 15-year-old besties Ruby and Kyla start with the smooth Sadie who walks into their fast food spot one day and becomes … what, exactly? She’s too old for their friend group, could just about be their mother, but assumes both roles before also becoming their boss. In front of the pair, who can’t afford a box of chicken and chips between them, Sadie casually flaunts her designer labels and brings in a bag of last season’s clothes as hand-me-downs. Ruby’s eyes widen as she picks up a sparkly jacket – soon she and Kyla are trying on Sadie’s lifestyle, too, with the rewards of drug running. “Between them, Londiwe Mthembu (Ruby) and Izzi McCormack John (Kyla) convey a spectrum of teenage innocence and experience akin to the characters in Sophie Ellerby’s slow-burning 2019 play Lit. Ruby clowns around with the abandon of a child relieved to not be at home, where the fridge is empty and her father is unpredictable. Kyla has more front, openly suspicious of Sadie (Rachel Redford) yet similarly enticed by her wealth.” Abridged, with thanks and acknowledgement, from the full review which can be read at: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/mar/25/hot-chicks-review-county-lines-sherman-theatre-cardiff-rebecca-jade-hammond * * * * From Nation Cymru: “Rebecca Jade Hammond’s whip-sharp script, full of tight, short lines which lend themselves to being delivered at a staccato rate, follows the misadventures of two friends, Ruby (Londiwe Mthembu ) and Kyla (Izzi McCormack-John). “They spend much of their time in a fast food joint. Here they dream zillennial dreams about TikTok fame, getting to Vegas. “...Their lives are completely altered when Sadie (Rachel Redford) walks, or rather stalks in, all burning confidence and designer gear. “Redford plays her as a callous, street-wise entrepreneur made good, who has a swagger in her step and a splinter of ice in her heart. “She’s the sort of drug dealer who doesn’t think twice about arranging for people to be beaten up or worse and is manipulative to a fault. “Much of the play is devoted to plotting Sadie’s luring of the two into a life of county lines running. It’s near impossible not to conflate her name with “sadist” as she likes nothing more than to test the limits of her power. “The blandishments of cash and Gucci clothes put both in danger on the streets. But when Ruby is forced to dress up for a party in a posh house in the Mumbles and go there by herself alarms bells sound. “...Hats off too to the the design team – Hannah Wolfe, Katy Morison and Tic Ashfield – responsible for stage, lighting and sound, respectively, who helped create a chicken-likin set which can turn into a place of menace and dislocation as the lives of the characters in it collapse and fall apart.” Abridged, with thanks and acknowledgement, from the full review which can be read at: https://nation.cymru/culture/theatre-review-hot-chicks/ * * * * From Emily Garside: “Hot Chicks by Rebecca Hammond is a look at drug running across county lines and the grooming of young women- by other young women- into that world. Following Londiwe Mthembu (Ruby) and Izzi McCormack John (Kyla) as they hang out in the local chicken shop owned by Cheny (Richard Elis), they meet Sadie (Rachel Redford), a glamorous young woman who seems to have everything they want. She befriends them by buying them chicken and ‘donating’ her old clothes to them. Eventually, they get involved in ‘helping’ her business and become drug runners for her. “It’s an important topic- both the issue of young women groomed into such jobs and the fact that it is women doing said grooming, which are hugely significant topics to tackle. Equally, we know there is a dearth of working-class and women-led stories, so this ticks all the right boxes in stories that feel like they need a stage. However, something falls a little short of this. Perhaps we are trying to cram so much into a 75-minute play that many things aren’t as fleshed out as they could be. “The strong cast delivers the serious play with the humour that Hammond layers on top of it. Richard Elis has a great dry wit that cuts through the teens' brash, bold dynamics and humour. The performances also raise the topic and the challenge of depicting teen life. Mthembu, in particular, gives a sincere, heartfelt, and ultimately heartbreaking performance, as does Ruby. Similarly, Redford embodies the quiet villainy of Sadie well, seething with malice and manipulation and with simple glances in a quietly assured performance. And McCormack John makes the brash, loud Kyla a very real version of a teen we’ve all encountered at some point. “Tic Ashfield’s sound and Katy Morison’s lighting establish a stark atmosphere, with the harsh neon glare serving as a budget version of the Vegas glitz the girls desire. Hannah Wolfe’s traverse set design has the shopfront at one end and the counter at another, bookending the world of the play. It’s a great claustrophobic set-up showing the ‘limitations’ of the world as the girls see it (and as may be true). It’s also interesting to have the audience peering in from all sides to the chicken shop…a bit like wandering past sober on a night out, and seeing the drunks, but in this case, seeing the ‘underworld’ of a seemingly innocent chicken shop. “There’s some excellent staging with the comings and goings of each character from the shop, to what gets hidden, and what is allowed out the back. It’s some clever use of the space from Wolfe that genuinely adds another layer to the piece. The music too, used in scene changes with TikTok dances, places the story firmly in time and (generational) place, and when the music literally) stops add a dramatic layer to the soundscape- something that is often overlooked and underappreciated. Ashfield crafts a story with this soundscape, and it is hugely impactful.” Abridged, with thanks and acknowledgement, from the full review which can be read at: https://thoughtfultheatre.substack.com/p/hot-chicks * * * * See also Rebecca Jade Hammond interviewed at: https://nation.cymru/culture/interview-rebecca-jade-hammond-on-her-new-play-hot-chicks/ |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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