Review | Lily Allen’s ‘West End Girl’ Show and the Duality of Woman

Lily Allen’s music has been along for the ride with me as I navigated an array of tumultuous men throughout the years. 

When I first started writing for this very paper, they published an intern spotlight about me where I cited Allen as a musical influence. A boy messaged me on Instagram about it, asking me to send him my music. A year later, he told me he had been a fan of mine since then, and we dated for a bit. He helped me put out my first song, but cried when I tried to break up with him and told me I couldn’t abandon him.

When I was in high school, a horrible guy stalked me on Spotify and said I must be missing him because he saw I was listening to Allen, and his mom listened to her religiously when going through her divorce with his dad.

It had nothing to do with him. Really, I had fallen in love with Lily Allen’s music long before meeting him. I remember checking out her CD from the library, thinking that she was the first truly funny artist I had ever found. Her music was uniquely mine, and felt automatically like a secret, like I wasn’t supposed to be listening (much less enjoying) her words. An English singer-songwriter and actress, Allen spread the good name of candid wit as her breakout single “Smile” rapidly climbed to number one on the U.K. Singles Chart in 2006. Fueled by popular Myspace demos, she quickly rose to become a prominent figure in U.K. pop culture.

Lily Allen has always felt like she voiced the little parts of my brain that aren’t allowed to be spoken out loud, much less by a woman. I’m sure this is the case for others too, and nowhere did this seem more fitting than when I read the lyrics in plain text on a huge screen while a sextet of string players played her biggest hits, opening for her most recent tour. 

“I suppose I should tell you what this bitch is thinking,” the strings swelled to the melody of her song “Hard Out Here.” I laughed a bit seeing the Bridgerton-esque orchestration to her early hits before she came out, as the Dallas Minor Sextet finished each song with a raised bow in unison. The crowd sang along: “I’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless … you want to be like your father, it’s approval you’re after… when we go up to bed, you’re just no good….” 

It took me through this slideshow of my life stages growing up, reading Allen’s words so accurately describing the push and pull between wanting to collapse into femininity, but rejecting the woman-shaped hole the world has built for us to fall into. “Now you’re calling me up on the phone, so you can have a little whine and a moan. And it’s only because you’re feelin’ alone,” she seethes on “Smile,” while also admitting, “When you flash up on my phone, I no longer feel alone,” on “Who’d Have Known.” The duality of women.

Allen’s most recent record West End Girl maintains the same biting attitude, but brought a resurgence of popularity to her that she hadn’t seen since the early 2000s. Propelled by controversy of the stories shared of her divorce from Stranger Things star David Harbour (who rose to prominence in his role as Jim Hopper in the series), the songs are full of introspections on sexuality, infidelity, and unhealthy attachment, and she answers the question we didn’t know we very much needed an answer to: what led to her divorce with the actor behind one of America’s most wholesome father figures?

Allen has been performing the record beginning to end on tour once the opening sextet came to a close, in a one-woman musical performance that felt very much inspired by her time on the West End performing 2:22 A Ghost Story with props, changing set pieces, and monologues throughout. 

She mentioned this play in her recent show at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, and how getting the part set off a chain of events in the opening of her show, in front of a curtain with a phone by her side: “I said, ‘I got some good news, I got the lead in a play.’ That’s when your demeanor started to change, you said that I’d have to audition, I said ‘You’re deranged.’” She then went into speaking her side of a phone call where she said to her partner, “It makes me really sad but … I just … want you to be happy.” As she finished the song, the curtain dropped to reveal a bedroom.

Allen then went into “Ruminating,” “Sleepwalking,” and “Tennis,” where she said her infamous line, “And who’s Madeline?” The song after, aptly titled “Madeline,” had Allen doing a convincing American accent and valley girl vocal fry as she pretended to be her on the phone, lamenting, “If he’s lying … please let me know, because I have my own feelings about dishonesty.”

On “Relapse,” Allen laid on the bed with her purse, shaking pill cases out as she cried, “You pushed me this far, and I just need to be numb.” During the next song, “Pussy Palace,” she again brought the lyrics literally to life looking through a “Duane Reade bag with the handles tied” on the floor, as she sneered, “Hundreds of Trojans, you’re so fucking broken.” She also did so with “4chan Stan,” where she stood with a giant shopping receipt she wrapped herself around as she sang, “You took someone shopping there in May ’24 … you bought her a handbag, it wasn’t cheap.”

Lily Allen | Photo: Ariel Goldberg

As the story of the dissolution of her relationship came to a close, she reflected on the painful and damaging realities that occur outside of herself as a mother as everything fell apart both inside and outside of her. On “Let You W/In,” she sang, “Lie to the children the ending was mutual, I’ll shoulder all of the pain.”

In the song, she also noted, “I can walk out with my dignity, if I lay my truth on the table.” It’s a good segue into Allen then sharing a sort of acceptance on “Fruityloop” as she sang ,“It is what it is, you’re a mess, I’m a bitch … thought that we could break the cycle … all your shit’s yours to fix … it’s not me, it’s you.” She realized her partner’s issues weren’t a sign from the universe; it was a manifestation of her own pain. The loop of co-dependency was stretched until it snapped. 

And as the show came to a close, she left, then came back to receive a bouquet of flowers and wave to the audience one more time as they cheered her away.

As she walked away, I thought about the letter she wrote at the beginning of the playbill for the show: “These songs were written at such a confusing time, I was … humiliated…. The fact that you are … giving me your time and attention … frankly blows my mind. I really didn’t think I would get to do this again.”

This show was a great reminder that sometimes, the greatest pain brings forth the greatest connection. And as someone Allen did this for my whole life, validating my thoughts and feelings no matter what guy tried to sway my assuredness, I know how special that can feel.