17/03/2026
Thank you John Shone, ex BBC reporter, for this review of The Revlon Girls.
"This work is a memorable masterpiece and I can’t recommend it enough. You might expect a play about the Aberfan disaster to move you to tears, but never to generate fits of laughter. Well, surprisingly there are laughs-a-plenty amid the despair in Stage Five Theatre’s brilliant production of The Revlon Girl, which is being staged at Llanymynech Village Hall this Thursday, Welshampton parish hall on Friday and Newtown Powys Theatre on Saturday 21st (all at 7.30pm)...
This is something not to be missed...the real-life story of a group of traumatised mothers struggling, desperately to deal with the unbearable loss of their children when a colliery waste tip collapsed on a primary school in a South Wales mining village. It happened in October 60 years ago, a devastating tragedy that shocked the world.
Powerful and emotional, the play is both heart-wrenching and heart-warming. And yes, it proves that humour can be found even in the deepest sorrow. It’s performed with great sensitivity and subtlety by a small, talented team who strike just the right tone and balance in exploring feelings of grief, guilt, pain and anger that still haunt the valleys community even now.
The Aberfan disaster left an indelible black stain on Britain And this play will remind you of other national scandals when lives have been destroyed because those in power have failed to live up to their responsibilities and then tried to walk away from them in the aftermath."
