Where: Ayers House
When: Until 14 March
Tickets: here

I love the Lizzie McGuire Movie. As the daughter of a high school Italian teacher who grew up in the 2000s, it’s a movie I have seen many, many times over my childhood. In this festival spectacular, Nicola Macri takes us on a whirlwind trip to Rome via Lizzie’s school trip.

Nicola puts her degree in film studies to good use in this dramatic retelling of an essential film. She digs into the plot holes, picking apart the story, including a scheduled roasting of Paolo and a dissection of Gordo the #niceguy. We re-enact the fashion scene (the moment where cinema peaked), there’s a quiz, and we sing along together to everything from Vitamin C’s ‘Graduation (Friends Forever)’ to, of course, ‘What Dreams are Made Of’. It’s everything you could hope for as a grown up Hilary fan.

There’s a lot of audience participation, but it’s the most fun and well-received audience participation I have ever experienced. But this makes sense. At the top of the show Nicola takes a cheer rating, what sort of Hilary fans are we: never seen the movie to Duff Buffs. The audience checks in somewhere towards the top. As a crowd packed of millennial Lizzie fans, there’s nowhere else anyone wants to be.

I loved this show so deeply very much. I recognise that I am the exact target audience and if you are reading this and you have ambivalent, or god forbid negative!, feelings about Hilary Duff then perhaps this is not the show for you. But for everyone else over here with Good Taste, this is the show you are looking for. Amidst all the recent drama of the great Disney Lizzie McGuire reboot scandal, Nicola will fill that Hilary sized hole in your heart.

5 out of 5 stars

— Natalie Carfora

Note: There are two other movies running as part of this festival: Cadet Kelly (a queer retelling) and A Cinderella Story.