REVIEW: Girls On Fire, Lambeth Fringe at The Golden Goose 27 – 28 September 2025

“solid, thoughtful and well-researched” ★★★

When we think of women at work during the Second World War, we imagine them in factories, à la Rosie the Riveter. Or as land girls driving tractors and baling hay. We don’t think of them as deadly sirens using their wily charms to blind side the enemy. But in the Dutch Resistance, this was the work of Hannie Schaft, Freddie and Truus Oversteegen who would routinely apply their lipstick, and lead Nazis into the woods on the premise of frolics but the reality of a bullet.

Girls on Fire, a new play at the Lambeth Fringe shines a light on this little-known aspect of resistance work. Written, performed, and produced by the Girls on Fire Theatre Company who aim to tell stories of histories forgotten, marginalised and subjugated women, it’s cracking material to work with. Freddie and Truus were sisters, and the play is an insight into the relationship between the three women, the ‘development’ of their work and the ethical dilemmas they faced.

At seventy-five minutes with no interval, this has been a labour of love with an all-hands-on- deck approach. Ellie Grace (red headed Hannah Shaft and playwright) Lily Sitzia (Freddie Oversteegen and co-creator/writer) and Emma Graveling (Truus Oversteegen and co-creator/writer) have worked as a unit to bring this story to life. The most effective parts are the experimental segments that draw audiences into the dark woods, with a roaming torchlight, moment of seduction and spray of soil as another man dies. As the women’s’ moral compass becomes increasingly eroded, they too become more stained and muddied.

The individual characters are well formed and engaging, but the narrative lags and loses pace at times and some of the text is a little on the nose. Their victims, the executed Germans were also humans with families and lives but are never bought to life or humanised and there’s plenty of space for more nuance here. With effective use of costumes, props and time-specific or atmospheric music including ghostly howling in the woods, there’s much to admire about this solid, thoughtful, well-researched production which has bags of potential.

GIRLS ON FIRE

Lambeth Fringe at Golden Goose Theatre

Writers: Written by Ellie Grace, Co-Written by Lily Sitzia & Emma Graveling

Director: Devised by Company

cast: Ellie Grace as Hannie Schaft, Lily Sitzia as Freddie Oversteegen, Emma Graveling as Truus Oversteegen, Movement Direction by Lily Sitzia, Musical Direction by Steven Finley, Produced by Isabelle Betts