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HighRise Entertainment (The UK Drill Project) celebrates its 10th anniversary with a nationwide tour of Lil.Miss.Lady, an immersive exploration of the history of Grime starring MC Lady Lykez, lifting the lid on what it takes for a female MC to navigate her way through a heavily male-dominated industry in the early 2000s.
Part-y rave, part-y drama, this multi-layered show is a proper gig with a hard-hitting, no holds barred narrative. Telling the story of a Grime crew hellbent on becoming superstars, Lil.Miss.Lady follows their journey through the sounds and visuals of Black-British bass music culture.
The production wholeheartedly celebrates Grime and its women while shining a big, bold, bass-fuelled spotlight on the problems and inequalities of the music industry. As Lil.Miss.Lady bursts onto the scene, she’s faced with different expectations to the boys, and it becomes pretty obvious, pretty fast, that she’s being exploited.
In Lil.Miss.Lady the audience are part of the script; instead of seats there’s a full-blown dancefloor with a bar and ravers can get stuck right in, dance, celebrate, and film the show to share with their friends on socials. A series of mini-mixes break up the story, blurring the lines between theatre and gig, as the storyline blasts through the years, from the early stages of Jungle, through UK Garage, Sub-Low, Funky House, Dubstep and Grime.
The tour kicked off with a sold-out World Premiere run at The Pit, Barbican, before two huge sold-out nights at Lowry, Salford, with a stop at Gloucester Guildhall in between, and culminating in a hugely finalé run at Brixton House, Brixton.
HighRise Entertainment brought us on board to help them celebrate the company’s 10th anniversary with a nationwide tour of Lil.Miss.Lady, an immersive exploration of the history of Grime starring MC Lady Lykez, lifting the lid on what it takes for a female MC to navigate her way through a heavily male-dominated industry in the early 2000s.
We love the team at HighRise, we love Grime, we love raves, we love groundbreaking theatre, and the show itself is nothing short of insane, so we absolutely relished the opportunity to get the news out there and into the media, and to help the company connect with new audiences, as well as bring new audiences INTO theatres.
We worked really closely with both HighRise and the team at each venue to maximise press coverage and get some representatives of the national and local Grime communities along to the show – in Salford and Brixton they threw massive afterparties with performances from local female MCs to provide a platform and visibility for the scene.
Across the tour we welcomed industry figures like Ritchie Brave (BBC 1Xtra), Jade Style (BBC 1Xtra), Deb Grant (BBC 6 Music), Ruff Sqwad, Kele Le Roc, $tush, Virus Syndicate, Treehouse, and Nicole Blackk, plus many more, as well as a long list of journalists from key national and regional publications – the general consensus is that the show is absolutely amazing, and massively important.
Journalist Tom May summed it up perfectly with a piece in Creative Boom. We also had some quality coverage from the likes of The Voice, The British Blacklist, Afridiziak Theatre News, The Stage, BabyStep Magazine, Manchester’s Finest, Manchester Wire, About Manchester, I Love Manchester, Broadway World, British Theatre Guide, Cinerama, Unity Radio, as well as interviews on BBC Radio London and BBC Radio Manchester.
“Gun fingers to everyone involved in Lil.Miss.Lady – we’re talking vibes upon vibes”
"Cutting-edge grime experience shows that 'immersive' is no longer just a buzzword"
