Gwenda’s Garage review – scrappy celebration of Sheffield’s female mechanic activists

Sheffield Playhouse
Set against the backdrop of Tory rule and Section 28, this rousing musical is based on the real-life hub for feminist and queer protest set up by three pioneering women

There’s something knowing about Nicky Hallett and Val Regan’s new musical. It’s a show based on recent history that’s simultaneously uncomfortable with its status as, in the wry words of one character, “heritage”. In telling the story of the pioneering 1980s Sheffield garage run by three female mechanics, Gwenda’s Garage celebrates these women while refusing to turn them into calcified historical figures.

As the performers tell the audience, this is a half-remembered, incomplete version of the actual Gwenda’s Garage, with fictional characters in place of the real mechanics. The musical is as much about the female protagonists’ activism against the backdrop of Tory rule and the introduction of Section 28 as it is about the garage itself, with rousing songs such as We Had a Scam and Welcome to Sheffield creating an infectious atmosphere of collective feminist and queer protest.