The History Girls: A Summary Of Things So Far

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A sketch show essentially boiling a potted history of girls from Boudica to Virginia Woolf down to a single flogged-to-death joke—“isn’t it funny when females from olden times act like modern idiots?”—this is tediously one bum note stuff.

Megan Heffernan, Sophie Fletcher and Vanessa-Faye’s endeavour to prick the pompously high regard within which certain historical women have come to be held is admirable, as is their elbowing in on the male-dominated niche of historical comedy. But the likes of Monty Python and Blackadder  succeeded because even at their silliest they worked in some degree of satirical commentary on times gone by. This trio just seem to want to make their characters booty dance.

Queen Mary, Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots star in MTV-style reality show Queenagers. Charlotte Brontë reveals her crude cartoons of naked people, before her sister Anne performs a deliberately dreadful version of Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ on the piano. Boudica does a Missy Elliot impression and later some dirty stand-up. Napoleon’s wife Joséphine totters about like a brainless Gallic nympho. The punchlines, where apparent, more often than not sail high over the audience's heads.

Heffernan, Fletcher and Stanley met at the Lecoq school of mime and clowning in Paris, and are excellent physical comedians. But this show makes you wonder whether they bothered to try something so simple as stepping back from each sketch for a moment to ponder: what, if anything, actually makes this funny? If they had then they might have spotted one weak gag and not history repeating itself.