Millennium Girls by Sophia Leonie – ★★★★☆

At the dawn of the new millennium we meet three girls, dealing with the pressure of teenage girlhood in their little corner of the world. Sophia Leonie's story is packed with nostalgia and heart, delicately unpacking the politics of racial identity and colourism.

The show opens with Nkhanise Phiri taking the mic, letting us know exactly where we are and who we are about to meet. The year is 1996, and Jessica (Sophia Leonie) is 12 years old, and starting at a new school in Finsbury Park. Having left life as she knows it in Brighton, for the unfamiliar world of North London, Jess finds herself struggling adapt to a new normal, where she is not the only mixed-race girl in a sea of white peers. She learns that being a mixed-race girl in this time and space, there are pre-conceived notions and labels already ascribed to her that she will soon learn to internalise after befriending Chanel (Tamara Camacho) another mixed-race girl who teaches Jess how to wear this new label with pride, and Latisha, bold and brazen and a lover of chaos. 

The story buffers between Jessica's coming of age in the 90s, and present day where she has a strained relationship with her 13 year old daughter Jasmine (Nkhanise Phiri) who is hiding a big secret. Jasmine finds her mother's diaries and is given access to a version of her that she doesn't know. Through Jasmine's eyes we watch Jessica go from a a shy and somewhat nerdy pre-teen, to a boy-crazy but still naive teenager, all while trying to find a version of herself that feels true.

The play's message is clear and important as it gives space to girls whose stories are easily forgotten, or dismissed. Jessica, Chanel and Latisha are three girls from inner city London, subject to predatory nature of the older men around them and their own desires to be seen and validated. They fall out and make up, prioritise their enjoyment over most things but still recognise the importance of education, contend with the differences between self-esteem and self-worth all while trying to keep their edges laid. 

Sensitively touching on more serious matters such as sexual assault, bullying and  colourism Leonie manages to strike a balance between the more trivial everyday challenges the girls face and traumatic incidents that, as was the norm for the time, went unchecked and unaddressed. Flashing forward to the present day, Jasmine faces similar pressures to the ones that her mother experienced, but they are tempered by the levels of social awareness prevalent in this day and age. Through Jasmine, Jessica is able to reflect on the progress she has made in her own perception of the world, herself and her daughter.

With a stellar soundtrack by Khalil Madovi and fun, gripping direction from Sleepova’s Jade Lewis, Millennium Girls is an enjoyable watch, but it does fall victim to several rushed plots, and endings that felt cliched. While the subplot with Jasmine served a relevant purpose to an extent, the fractures and reason for their estrangement was never explained and felt like an unnecessary detail the play could have gone without.

Millennium Girls however, sets out to uplift and offer posterity to the girls who largely defined Black British culture as we know it, and does this successfully.

★★★★☆

By Melody Adebisi.

Millennium Girls is showing at Brixton House until 31 May.