Women only

A triple thick dose of chicklit at Hampstead. Amelia Bullmore’s good-natured comedy has three girls sharing a student house in 1983. Those were the days. Back then we received ‘grants’ to attend university, i.e., we were paid to look occupied, like job-seekers and politicians. I’m glad to report that Bullmore accurately evokes the culture and language of the time. Just a couple of blunders. We didn’t say ‘PJs’ to mean pyjamas. And ‘what is she like?’, to express affectionate exasperation, didn’t arrive till the 1990s. The girls don’t smoke, nor do they mention Greenham, which is odd, but the play wishes to focus on their emotional and professional development.

The three are nicely drawn and convincingly played: there’s the chilly feminist (Gina McKee), the tough lesbian (Tamzin Outh-waite) and the motherly nymphomaniac (Anna Maxwell Martin). Tragedy and joy are doled out with the random heartlessness of real life and with no regard to personal merit.