All Fired Up: an 80’s Mixtape Musical is an Australian musical that takes us all the way back to the eighties. It asks why some women abandon their dreams.
Presented in a gig-theatre style, similar to Six! The Musical, the vocalist (Roz Pappalardo) in the five-member backing band has a dual role, providing the voice of DJ Neon. The band have leaned into the eighties theme, dressing to invoke the era, with choices including pastel coloured keep fit attire, and an homage to David Bowie.
Tammy (Rachel Terry), bursts into stage as the band are giving a very spirited rendition of Madonna’s Like a Virgin. We’re in her fitness class. But how did we get here?
What follows is a flashback to the events of a year ago, when Tammy: mid-divorce, mid-house move, and mid-perimenopausal mid-life crisis, is packing boxes. She’s also having an argument with her daughter, Violet (Scarlett Terry).
As the fight escalates, there’s some painful barbs thrown between mother and daughter. Violet destroys her mum’s prized 1980’s mixtape, which Tammy made back in 1987. You can possibly gain an understanding of the audience demographic for this show, because that moment raised an anguished gasp from the almost sold-out crowd.
Having destroyed the cassette, Violet offers an olive branch in the form of a playlist on her phone that contains the same tracks listed on the cassette’s label.
Somehow, this transports Tammy back to 1987 and her teenage bedroom, which is occupied by her teenage self (also portrayed by Scarlett Terry). It’s probably not a good idea to look too closely at how that might have worked.
What follows is a conversation between Younger Tammy and Older Tammy, where the younger tries to find out what life is like some almost forty years into the future. Older Tammy displays some time-travel sci-fi genre savviness by trying to avoid creating a paradox, or giving her younger self any knowledge she thinks she shouldn’t have.
All of this is backed by some great 1980s hits, and the ‘mix-tape’ of songs that the creative team have gathered together had the audience in a great mood as the story continued.
There’s an attempt to contrast behaviours then and now: younger Tammy takes a lot of her life advice from DJ Neon, whereas, in the ‘now’, Violet is listening to influencers on TikTok. A lot of popular music is talking about the same topics: love, sex, feminism – it’s just doing so in very different musical styles.
“Older Tammy realises that it’s fine to still love what you loved doing back then”
Underneath the humorous dialogue about societal changes, there’s a deeper message, about how people, women in particular, lose themselves, and give up on their dreams. Young Tammy wanted to be a backing singer and dancer for Madonna, but at the point where we first meet her, Older Tammy barely listens to music at all.
In travelling back in time, Older Tammy realises that it’s fine to still love what you loved doing back then. It’s fine to still find joy in music, and dancing. It’s fine to follow your dreams, even if how that manifests itself isn’t how you hoped it would. It’s fine to not be afraid to take up space, and be seen, and heard.
Having realised that she can still follow her dreams, and be the person she always wanted to be, Older Tammy travels back to the ‘now’. Again, don’t look too closely at how this happens.
This brings us to the finale, which we’re not going to spoil, but which has some truly amazing tunes in it.
There’s a moderate amount of audience participation here, although just feel free to do what you can, it’s not that serious.
This show is a loud, brash, neon delight that will speak to any woman who feels that she’s lost sight of who she is as the years have passed her by. Pass the leg warmers and the leotards, we wanna dance with somebody!
All Fired Up: an 80’s Mixtape Musical continues at 17:55 at Studio One at Assembly George Square Gardens every day until August 25 (not 12, 19)
Featured Image courtesy Chloe Nelkin Consulting