‘It’s about friendship’: Actor Ashton Malcolm steps offstage to direct Scenes with Girls
Ashton Malcolm has been a staple across Adelaide’s stages for years, but with a new production of British playwright Miriam Battye’s Scenes with Girls the actor has moved behind the scenes to direct this witty and brazen portrait of millennial friendship.
For Adelaide’s theatre-lovers, Ashton Malcolm is a familiar face. After recent successes with roles in State Theatre Company productions like Euphoria and The Dictionary of Lost Words, Malcolm has stepped away from the footlights to make her directorial debut with Scenes with Girls – a wry and audaciously unfiltered portrait of friendship between young women.
For Malcolm, acting is still her first love and primary practice. Yet directing had been creeping up on her for years through her work in teaching, creative facilitation and running workshops.
“I make a lot of work from scratch,” Malcolm tells InReview. “I was in a performance art trio and looking back, I’ve often been self-directing or watching the others and going, ‘Try this, try that’.”
Even so, the idea of taking on a full production felt terrifying – too much responsibility, and too many moving pieces.
The project that finally changed her mind came when actor Brittany Gallasch discovered Miriam Battye’s script for Scenes with Girls in the National Theatre Library in London. Drawn to the play’s funny yet flawed characters, Gallasch brought the script home to Adelaide.
“Britt asked me if I’d like to direct it and I said, ‘Look, I’m not a director, but let me have a read’,” Malcolm recalls. “And I just loved the play. I thought this is a great chance for me to test something new creatively. I don’t want to rest on my laurels. I want to keep doing things that are a bit scary.”
Battye’s script follows 24-year-old housemates Tosh and Lou, best friends who are fiercely devoted to each other and determined to carve their own way through life in defiance of romantic ideals and the social expectations that weigh so heavily on women. Their friendship is close, possibly codependent, and Battye’s script exposes a gritty portrait of female friendship, the complexities of share-house living and a razor-sharp exploration of millennial sexual politics.
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“What I love about this script is that it gives female friendship the same significance that we give hetero romantic relationships,” Malcolm says. “So many films and TV shows are looking at a man and a woman who fall in love and the complexities of that. This play does that too, but it’s about friendship.”
Looking back at her own twenties, Malcolm recognises the dynamics. “A lot of the friendships I had were really codependent, and when some of them fell apart, it hurt more than some of the break-ups I’ve been through. But there aren’t songs for that or movies for that. I feel like this play is filling that gap.”
"When some of them fell apart, it hurt more than some of the break-ups I’ve been through. But there aren’t songs for that or movies for that."
One of the first things that grabbed her was how frankly Tosh and Lou talk about sex. “We’re used to seeing men do that. But even in 2025, when women do it – particularly young women – it’s still a bit jarring,” she says.
“When I think about the women I know, they are having those conversations. We have Sex and the City, but even that feels quite dated now. This is a contemporary version of two women examining sexual relationships.”
Malcolm is also delighted by how unapologetically flawed the characters are. “They are both very funny, they’re both very smart, they can be selfish, they can be possessive of each other. Their relationship gets a bit toxic at points,” she says.
“I really don’t like the term ‘unlikeable character’. It’s often attached to women. If a male character was saying those lines, he wouldn’t be unlikeable – he would be assertive or aggressive. So I think people might find Lou and Tosh challenging, but my hope is they can maybe step back and say, ‘why is that?’”
Now that artist-run theatre collective Rumpus is on hiatus, Malcolm sees Scenes with Girls filling a space in local programming for audiences in their twenties and thirties.
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“Adelaide is really, really good at making theatre for young people. We have Windmill, Patch, Slingsby – and they’re making international-level, world-class children’s theatre,” she says. “Adelaide is also great at making work for subscriber-age audiences. But we miss the gap in the middle: people in their 20s, 30s, 40s.”
"Adelaide is also great at making work for subscriber-age audiences. But we miss the gap in the middle: people in their 20s, 30s, 40s."
Cost is part of that. “Theatre tickets are really expensive. I’m used to being in shows and my friends not being able to see them,” she told InReview. For Scenes with Girls they’ve deliberately kept prices low. “I think the most expensive ticket is $30.”
Accessibility also means setting the world of the play in the audience’s backyard. After talks with Battye in London, the creative team was granted permission to locate the action in contemporary Adelaide. “We want to remove as many layers of disconnect as possible,” Malcolm says. “So for people in their 20s and 30s, there are no barriers for them to cross. I really hope that it can be an access point into theatre for them. Theatre should feel like it’s for them as well.”
Malcolm hasn’t stepped into directing alone. The production is full of collaborators from her past – Brittany Gallasch, Caithlin O’Loghlen and Zola Allen are all Flinders Drama alumna, as well as brother and sister duo Nescha and Antoine Jelk who join the crew as directing mentor and sound designer respectively.
Malcolm welcomes audience discomfort, so long as it leads somewhere. “There are bits in the play that make me uncomfortable,” she admits. “But rather than just saying ‘I didn’t like that’, I’d love people to ask why; if a man said that, would I be uncomfortable? If an older person said it?”
Battye’s script pivots from banter into raw confession and Malcolm is intent on making the emotional punches land. “When I first read it, I thought that it starts in a beautiful, light place but gets dark quite quickly. So we’re trying to pull out as much lightness and love as we can, so that when it goes to darker places it feels like we’ve earned it. I love these two characters deeply. I hope the audience can feel that.”
Support from larger companies has also been crucial. Scenes with Girls sits within State Theatre Company’s Stateside Program, with additional backing from Brink Productions and Goodwood Theatre.
“Making theatre in Adelaide at the moment can be tricky, but the companies here are really supportive,” Malcolm says. “The help we’ve received has been massive.”
As for her future, Malcolm isn’t abandoning acting, but the director’s role has proved to be more seductive than anticipated.
“I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much I’m loving it,” she admitted. “It feels like a really nice hybrid of all the things I love doing. I think they serve each other. My ultimate goal would be to balance both, to keep making art for my whole life and to keep diversifying.”
Scenes with Girls runs from December 3 – 13 at Goodwood Theatre’s Studio Space as part of State Theare Company South Australia’s Stateside Program.