Review The Not So Ugly Sisters, Waterside Arts Theatre

Waterside Arts Christmas Show The Not So Ugly Sisters has opened and we were invited along to check it out. Check out what we thought in our review. 

We sent one of our Mum On The Go reviewers Carrie-Ann and children to the press night and you can discover what they thought below.

Review of The Not So Ugly Sisters at the Waterside Arts Theatre

When we were invited to Waterside Arts ins Sale to watch ‘The not so Ugly Sisters’, I was over the moon. It’s one of my favourite theatres to go to with the kids. It’s just the right size to ease the logistics of toileting and child navigation and intimate enough to get up close and personal with the talent on stage..from every seat!

Running alongside the show is a post-man pat exhibition. We arrived in plenty of time to have a good nosey at the model characters in Greendale. My kids were big fans of postman pat in their preschool days so they reminisced about who everyone was and how the town was laid out.

There were colouring sheets to take home and although you can’t touch any of the models, it’s spaciously laid out at child level, to allow them to see all the intricate details.

We spent about 10 to 15 minutes there, leaving time for trips to the toilets and refuelling before the show began. All this is just a matter of a few steps away from each other.

Once inside the theatre, the two-woman show immediately set the audience at ease and the tone for the night: humour! The kids speculated about what might be about to unfold; Was it a hairdressers? Were they going to tell us a story? Both correct, but how they told the story, with a captivating, hilarious, imaginative spin on the traditional Cinderella story, is what kept the adults and kids engaged. 

Imagine it’s the day of the big royal wedding and you’ve arranged to watch it on TV with the bride’s two uninvited sisters in their local salon. The gossip, the stories, the songs, the jokes, the emotion… you know you’d have a better time there than attending the pomp and ceremony of the real thing! ..and we did!

My entourage was made up of two nine and eight-year-old boys sons and a six-year-old girl. At the end of the show, they declared that both boys and girls would love the show.  They all had a different part of the show which they enjoyed the most and a difference in the performance that made them belly laugh. It’s safe to say the humour is what really appealed to and engaged the boys and girls alike.

It’s a real tribute to the talent of Daisy Ann Fletcher and Lucy Rafton who play the sisters Dolly and Barb. They had the audience captivated throughout as they speak directly to the audience, and illustrated some fantastic caricatures as they tell their version of the story with the salon props.

You’d almost forget to give them credit for how talented they are at singing because you get lost in the humour and storytelling in the musical moments too.

The moral of the story, however, isn’t lost in the humour and you leave feeling uplifted that resilience and strength can overcome modern-day trolling and bullying with family by your side….and without giving too much away… you also leave feeling a tad Christmassy too.