Rated 🍯🍯🍯
Judging by its title, Posh Girls seemed poised to deliver a blend of comedy and melodrama, the kind that thrives on exaggerated histrionics and first-world dilemmas. The bee anticipated a spectacle of privilege paraded about in ostentatious outfits, as though it is not enough to be rich; one must also be insufferably obvious about it. And on that front, the play did not disappoint.
Feathers, Fur, and Familiar Punchlines
When one of the characters made her entrance, wrapped in something so extravagantly feathery (or furry? Either way, she resembled a giant bird), the message was clear: I am rich, and I need you to know it. The dialogue that followed was fast, funny, and full of predictable but satisfying jabs at the absurdity of privilege. Was the humor fresh? Not exactly. It leaned into slapstick and well-worn tropes about the elite, but it landed, especially for those willing to indulge in a little schadenfreude.
But just as the bee was settling into an evening of light entertainment, the play pulled a sleight of hand—suddenly, between the laughs, there were flashbacks. Childhood memories surfaced, and with them, a surprising sense of nostalgia. The show wasn’t merely about posh girls and their petty grievances; it was about how childhood shapes us, how the choices we make as adults are tangled up in experiences we barely recall, and how—whether we acknowledge it or not—the past is always sitting in the room with us.
The Ghosts of Girlhood
There were flashbacks—scenes of childhood interspersed with the present—and unexpectedly, the bee found itself drawn in. It wasn’t just the comedy of privilege anymore; it was something more familiar. The sight of these girls as children, their interactions brimming with that unfiltered boldness unique to youth, pulled at something deep. The bee was reminded of its own childhood, of that boundless sense of possibility, of how, as children, we believe that everything—every choice, every moment—is leading somewhere extraordinary. And then adulthood arrives, and slowly, inevitably, life puts you in your place.
And perhaps that’s what Posh Girls did best—it forced its characters (and, by extension, its audience) to confront that passage of time, to examine the ripple effect of choices made long ago, the ones that seemed inconsequential at the time but have come to define entire lives. It’s a funny thing, looking back. Patterns start to emerge, threads reveal themselves, but only after enough time has passed to allow for the retrospection. And even then, it’s an untidy process—memory is unreliable, self-perception is fluid, and truth is often a matter of perspective.
The two women at the center of this story were forced into a room together, and it was inevitable that the past would resurface. But what struck the bee most was not just the excavation of childhood wounds, but the realization—one that feels almost too obvious to articulate—that who we are today is an accumulation of all that came before.
The Friendship Reckoning
Another reason Posh Girls moved the bee had less to do with its commentary on privilege and more to do with its portrait of friendship. It brought back memories of girlhood, of that intoxicating closeness that feels invincible, of friendships so consuming they seem to matter more than family, more than anything. When the bee was younger, it would have taken a bullet for its best friends. They were everything. But adulthood carves away at that kind of devotion. People grow into their own separate orbits, responsibilities mount, life happens. The kind of all-consuming, all-encompassing friendships of youth become a thing of memory. Not necessarily a bad thing, but a change nonetheless.
There was a moment in Posh Girls when this shift became stark—when the sheer impossibility of recreating what once was settled in. And that, more than any of the satire, was what lingered.
A Question of Perspective
The bee did, at times, wonder whether the play was asking the audience to weep for the problems of the privileged. And truthfully, it wasn’t sure.
People can only process their lives within the framework of their own experiences. The fact that there are objectively bigger problems in the world does not make personal grief, regret, or estranged friendships any less real to those experiencing them. That’s the nature of being human. To the person experiencing it, pain is pain, regret is regret, loss is loss. It doesn’t negate the existence of greater suffering elsewhere, nor does it demand a moral ranking. It simply is.
In that sense, Posh Girls did what all theatre aims to do: it created a space for reflection. The bee took that space and used it to its satisfaction, but the bee also recognizes that this may not be everybody’s preferred way to reflect.
Three stars!
Watched January 2025 at the King’s Head Theatre, London. Posh Girls is running at the King’s Head through 2 February 2025.
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