Review: Poetry comes alive in bold new local drama Head Girl

Three’s new series is an intriguing and confident drama, writes Tara Ward.

Florence Sadler stands on stage alone, the spotlight in her eyes. She’s just been introduced as “New Zealand’s own literary Banksy,” and is about to perform a poem that went viral online just two days earlier. The poets who performed before Flo are accomplished, published writers, but Flo has only written one poem in her entire life. “Turns out, I’m a genius,” she’d told her friend Emily moments earlier. Flo stares down at her phone, and begins.

“She used to be the head girl of my high school, but now she’s a massive cunt,” she says, spitting out lines about berms in Karori and her boyfriend’s depression. Afterwards, Flo rushes into the alley behind the theatre, where she vomits onto the street.

Welcome to Head Girl, Three’s intriguing and ambitious new six-part drama inspired by a collection of poems by writer and performer Freya Daly Sadgrove. The series is co-created by Jo Raj (Miles From Nowhere), Tara Riddell (Alibi), and Harry McNaughton (Happiness), with McNaughton writing the series and Sweet Tooth’s Robyn Grace directing. Head Girl follows three estranged friends who flat together in Wellington as they navigate the pressures and challenges of life in their early 20s.

Nī Dekkers-Reihana is mesmerising as Flo, who describes herself as being “in a chrysalis of reinvention” having just dropped out of university to become a poet. She flats with Sadie (Tatum Warren-Ngata), a PhD student who’s launching a new app that translates English into reo Māori in real time. Sadie’s a high achiever, a perfectionist whose life is planned out in fine detail, while lonely third flatmate Dee (Liv Parker) steals toilet paper from parties she isn’t invited to and keeps a pet hedgehog in her bedroom. “The people I live with, we have nothing in common,” Flo says. “They’re fucked.”

These three different women are living three different lives – but only on the surface. Head Girl is about that stage in your 20s where you’re deciding what your life should look like, and Flo, Dee and Sadie are desperate to prove themselves in a world where they’re still not sure where they fit. They want to be taken seriously as adults, but they still need the support and approval of their parents. Things are about to change for these women – Flo’s mother’s rich friend wants to publish a collection of her poetry, while Sadie convinces a young investor to sink his trust fund into her app – but beneath their external assuredness lies deep anxieties about never quite being enough.

That’s how Head Girl feels, too. This is a bold, fearless show that has a thoughtful vulnerability to it, as well as a seething undertone of fury and bite. Sadie, Dee and Flo’s lives play out against a dark and slightly grimy Wellington (episode one is filmed entirely at night), and while you don’t need to be familiar with Daly Sadgrove’s poetry to enjoy the show, Head Girl is all about the power of language and discovering your own authentic voice.

Whispered words bookend the first episode, whirling and twisting into Flo’s mind until they become a deafening noise. But there are silences in Head Girl too, like line breaks in a poem, quiet moments that speak volumes about the emotional and mental health of these women and hint at a shared, secret past. Parker, Warren-Ngata and Dekkers-Reihana give brilliantly raw and real performances and bring out the best in McNaughton’s darkly comedic script, ably supported by a talented cast that includes Michelle Langstone, Jodie Rimmer, Scotty Cotter and Arlo Gibson.

“Let’s do this, bitches,” Dee screams at the end of Head Girl’s debut episode. She’s heralding a wild ride – these women are on the precipice of something great, and so indeed is Head Girl. Just as local drama Crackhead did a few months ago, Head Girl has burst onto our screens full of confidence and power, ready to tell its story no matter how messy it might be. Like Dee on a night out, this is a show that will stride boldly into your house, steal your toilet paper and kiss you hard on the mouth. How glorious that a book of poetry has been transformed into such a vivid and original piece of New Zealand television.

Head Girl streams on ThreeNow and screens on Three on Wednesdays at 9.30pm.