Review: Girlhood in the Bathroom

📍 Dining Room, Gilded Balloon Teviot

🗓️ 18th August 2026

🎟️ PR Invite

Produced by Girlhood Productions, this heartwarming new Australian musical is set in a club bathroom on New Year’s Eve.

The show centres on two groups of friends who randomly meet in the club bathroom and over the next 60 minutes we learn more about their lives, their worries, their experiences and along the way some typical behaviour of a big night out.

Best friends Steph (Imogen Brown) and Gwen (Sarah Eaton) are out together for the evening when they run into and start chatting with Zoe (Hannah Manderson), Kiya (Amaya Pardillo) and Baylee (Alice Quick). Over the course of the evening their paths keep crossing in the bathroom, which culminates in a hilarious, raw and heartwarming performance.

As more alcohol is consumed throughout the evening, the conversations get messier, emotions run high and these five twenty-something-year-old girls fall out, learn more about each other and ultimately realise the importance of friendship and girlhood.

The show contains sixteen original songs, which is quite a lot to get through in one hour, but I felt that each one added something to the performance. They were well-written, beautifully performed and very much captured the vibe of the evening. From hilarious songs about drinking and loving one another, to much more emotional moments revealing secrets, self-doubt and a particularly difficult and painful experience for one of the girls.

The performances from each of the cast were full of energy, completely dedicated to their characters and I fully believed the story they were telling. They balance the raw moments with the humour really well throughout, and some physical comedy dotted through the performance adds another layer. Each character very much has their own worries and insecurities and that came through in their performances.

The only element that I would say needs tightening is the flow of the show - at times it felt like it could have been smoother than it was, but that is something that can be worked on to take this musical to the next level.

Girlhood in the Bathroom is a coming-of-age story that is sweet, funny, heartwarming and full of bathroom antics that I’m sure a lot of women will recognise and relate to. The show started quite late after a full day of performances I had attended earlier, but when those five girls burst onto the stage with the energy and joy that they did, I was completely ready for a fun evening watching this musical. For women in their 20s, it’s incredibly relatable, while for women who are no longer in that age bracket, it’s nostalgic.

Girlhood in the Bathroom continues its run at Gilded Balloon Teviot until 22 August at 22:30.