Girls ★★★★ Young Vic | Oct 22 - Nov 21, 2026

In 2014, the militant Islamist group Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls from Chibok, Borno State, north-eastern Nigeria. The horrific event received considerable press coverage in the West, but Theresa Ikoko’s first professionally produced play brings it to the fore with an intensity and emotional force usually absent from the nightly news as it chronicles the world’s disasters. By introducing us to Tisana, Ruhab and Haleema, she transforms an abstract act of infamy into something personal and profound.
From the moment the three appear on stage in a choreographed sequence, Hannah Akhalu, Sewa Zamba and Tara Tijani establish their characters as distinct individuals. Akhalu’s Tisana is shy and tentative, an obedient child who displays extraordinary fortitude in the trials that follow. Zamba’s Ruhab is a mischievous romantic whose aspirations extend little further than finding a boyfriend, while Tijani’s Haleema is a fiercely independent sceptic who punctures both religious and romantic dreams. Despite the distance between their lives and ours, we feel that we know these young women and can identify with them, and as their ordeal unfolds, we are drawn into their differing responses to it. In a crisis, would we accept our circumstances and adapt to them, or resist and rebel? Are there principles or religious beliefs we hold so deeply that we would suffer for them, or does survival take precedence over everything else? Ikoko explores these weighty questions with humour and sharp insight, while director Ewa Dina successfully sustains our interest in the unfolding drama. On occasion, however, the play does feel a little overlong, and the language sometimes seems to exceed the vocabulary of schoolgirls. The voice-over at the end provides context for the trio’s predicament, but it also distances us from the girls’ experiences, momentarily returning us to the detachment of yet another news story. Nevertheless, the strength of the performances and Ikoko’s ability to make these young women’s personalities and choices so immediate ensure that their story becomes much more than a distant headline.

Rated: ★★★★

Reviewed by J.C.

Photo by Helen Murray

When, Where, Getting there:

• Oct 22 - Nov 21, 2026
• Mon - Sat: 8 pm, Wed & Sat: 3 pm
• Young Vic
• Nearest tube: Waterloo
• https://www.youngvic.org/whats-on/girls/