All the standard high-school movie tropes are in here: there’s the queen bee and her adoring/terrified acolytes; the enticing new girl; the stern headmistress with a heart of gold. But in transplanting this overworn format to Ghana in the 80s, Ghanaian American writer Jocelyn Bioh has sharpened it up and created a funny but biting play packed with clever laughs that come with a stinging afterburn.
School Girls premiered in the US in 2017 and is inspired by a real-life event in 2011, when a US-born, Minnesota-raised mixed-race woman – with arguably a better hope of faring well on a global stage – was named winner of the Miss Universe Ghana beauty pageant. It’s a story that raises difficult questions about who defines beauty, and the awful knock-on effects it can have. Yet despite this specific context, there is plenty about Monique Touko’s warm and engaging production that will feel painfully and amusingly familiar to everyone. The terrible fragility of teenage friendship. The need to fit in yet also stand out. That burning desire for a big and beautiful future.
