Millennium Girls at Brixton House Review

Millennium Girls at Brixton House production image. Photo by Helen Murray

Written by Bronagh for Theatre & Tonic

Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review

Content warnings: some explicit language, themes of colourism, sexism and misogyny, some racially charged language and descriptions of sexual assault.

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Garage music? Check. A Walkman? Check. Raving at Ministry of Sound? Check. It can only be the 90s! Millennium Girls takes us back to a time before Instagram and TikTok, before a wealth of information was available at the touch of a fingertip. 

Meet Jessica (Sophia Leonie), who has been uprooted from Brighton by her mum and moved to one of the worst bits of London – Finsbury Park. Jessica feels like she stands out, for the wrong reasons, due to being of dual heritage. The black girls want nothing to do with her, nor do the white girls. Until she meets Chanel (Tamara Camacho), a dual heritage girl who happens to be very popular. Chanel takes Jessica under her wing, much to the initial displeasure of Latisha (Unique Spencer). The girls navigate their teen years together, hanging around the estate, first kisses and swapping telephone numbers with boys until the summer before they start Year Nine, where things take a turn. 

Millennium Girls explores important and very current themes, including consent, misogyny, identity and friendship. Life of a millennium girl isn’t too different to those of ‘20s girls, where there is still a battle with consent and pressures of both a sexual nature and the pressure to ‘fit in’. These topics are handled extremely well, with the multi-talented Sophia Leonie’s script descriptive and well acted, from normal conversations between friends to accounts of pressure into sex and later an account of sexual assault. Leonie shows the effect of sexual assault on a survivor, teenage Jessica, finding ways to blame herself and then isolating herself from friends and family. This is very profound theatre, at its very best. 

Millennium Girls covers three decades, going back and forth in time, so we also meet Jessica’s daughter Jasmine (Nkhanise Phiri), who has discovered and is reading her mum’s diaries. Jasmine is often on stage as an onlooker, and during the transitions where she announces what year it is. This is something I really enjoyed and helped link past and present together effortlessly, showing trauma that her mum faced, also present in Jasmine’s teenage years. Jasmine confides in her mum that intimate pictures of her are making their way around Snapchat, showing that issues around consent and misogyny are still very much present in the current day.

I was a little confused by Jasmine’s presence at first, it didn’t click straight away who she was or why her mum wasn’t on the scene as much as she wanted. A quick flick through the play text answered these questions for me, and although not detrimental to my overall enjoyment it could have been beneficial to include some , if not all, of these details.

Of course a special mention to our trio, acted perfectly by Camacho, Leonie and Spencer. They, along with Leonie’s script and Jade Lewis’ direction, really encapsulate life of a teenager pre 2000.  There are plenty of nostalgic gems from Bacardi Breezers, the outfits, Camden Palace and, of course, the music throughout. 

Millennium Girls is a very special show, clearly one written and acted with a lot of love. This is a breath of fresh air to the theatre scene, and a fabulous addition to Brixton House’s repertoire. Nostalgia meets modern day London seamlessly, and does the girls of the millennium justice.

At Brixton House until 31 May 2025

★★★★