A female-led musical by Tamiko Dooley (music/lyrics) and Cathy Farmer (book/lyrics), Flyology invokes a collision between three notable historical women and an artificial intelligence system. It has its first full run at the Union Theatre this week.
The ‘System’ has a woman’s voice but has been coded and designed by a petulant young man, Callum (Charlie Renwick), who sees pound signs in the opportunity to present a simulation without emotion and feelings to his investor. A simulation, effectively, without women.
A glitch in the programming lets in mathematician Ada Lovelace (Meg Abbott), composer Ethel Smyth (Ashleigh Cassidy, who also produces the show), and suffrage activist Emmeline Pankhurst (Aishling Jones). Why these three in particular are never fully explained: Lovelace died before friends and contemporaries Smyth and Pankhurst were born.
One question I always ask with new productions like this is why is it a musical? A commitment to being sung-through may help here, as there are songs that don’t necessarily progress the plot, and moments of underscored dialogue that cry out to become songs. I find myself wondering as the show progresses whether Flyology would be better off as a play.
The performances of Abbott and Cassidy (who produces the show) are particularly strong and confident; Jones has the harder part as her character has been widely depicted in shows, including the musical Sylvia. I would like to see a musical where Ada Lovelace alone takes on the world that subverted her ideas.
A stronger second half builds Flyology through more realised themes, but female agency is tied closely to emotional ties rather than career ambitions and progression. They turned the page, they tried to silence us, is the message, but it is in love that The System is conquered.
A major failing in the show is the character of Callum, who could be either a precocious teenager influenced by Andrew Tate and the like, or a power-hungry would-be tech billionaire like Elon Musk. At the moment, he is neither and comes across as a rather whiny caricature.
Flyology has sharp lyrics and a book that could be tightened to make us more invested in the three women trapped within The System, and The System itself. It’s a good tactic to open and close the show with the AI voice.
The real book titled Flyology was written by Ada Lovelace at age 12. Her brilliance at solving logic puzzles, manipulating figures, and investigating the impossible – while being an unconventional Victorian woman in personal life – makes her of prime importance to modern system coding.
Ethel Smyth was the first female composer granted a damehood in 1922. An uncompromising woman, she shook up gender norms and enjoyed disruption. Emmeline Pankhurst was the leader of the suffragettes, advocating direct action against authorities to change laws that prohibited women from voting.
These are strong female role models, similar to those chosen for the musical Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World. Trapping them in an unreal world is inventive and offers scope to explore how women have changed in the workforce and the wider world since the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Flyology, directed by Craig McKenzie with choreography by Grace Browning (making her UK debut) and set design by Joshua Benmore, has an excellent concept and is full of ideas. It just feels at this point that the writers need to commit to what they want to say – an observation I would also make on Adam Gregory’s occasionally confusing and alienating lighting, with moments of semi-darkness and oddly roaming spotlights.
As a musical, Flyology contains some excellent work in both melodies and lyrics, but needs a more cohesive narrative tone: it could focus more on motifs for each woman – perhaps a bolder sound for Pankhurst, a discordant one for Smyth, an ordered one for Lovelace. I found my thoughts going back to the fringe plays Clouds and Femme Fatale and how they wrote strong and inspirational women, and to the musical Ride.
I’m giving this 2.5 stars. There is scope to grow, and there are moments where Dooley and Farmer have created a story and score that does start to fly – but for me, it doesn’t quite come together yet. We haven’t seen the last of this show, though.
Flyology is at the Union Theatre until 8 May 2026 – follow its progress on Instagram.
Photo credit: Tom Chaplin