BWW Reviews: THE UGLY SISTERS, Soho Theatre, January 22 2014

Pantomime, even fairy tales, are not known for their well-rounded characters - and the cookie-cutter bad girls, The Ugly Sisters from Cinderella, are no exceptions. But what if they were not men in drag, not just caricatures on envy, not just vicious bullies - what if they were real women?

Abbi Greenland and Helen Goalen sing, dance and narrate the sisters' story in Rashdash's raucous show. Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks, with wasteland strewn with used needles and condoms for a playground, the kids are suddenly whisked away to their mother's new boyfriend's middle-class home, complete with his middle-class daughter, Arabella - who is soon the apple of their mother's eye. Clinging to each other - the only love they've ever known - they find themselves cast as unwitting grotesques in a reality TV show, with the hand of The Prince a prize. They don't get the royal match of course (their stepsister does) but they do win 15 minutes of cruel fame.

There's a rather worrying offer of ear protectors made on the way into the theatre and the first song is very loud indeed, but the show soon settles into a mix of angry dissonance and plaintive melody, played by three highly versatile musicians. The best of the songs are very beautiful indeed, if slightly spoiled by the knowledge that there's a big drum going to be hit very hard very soon! The sisters are plainly not so ugly on the inside.

If the targets are a little soft - sink estate teens too neglected to realise that they are being exploited and Big Brother style voyeurism/sadism mass culture - there's a real pathos in the fate of high spirited girls shorn of the love that any kids need. Though the show aims at a non-mainstream audience - think Edinburgh Fringe - there's plenty here that could be developed (should it be desired) into a much more commercial approach to two neglected, but important, characters of English theatre. Underlying it all is a timeless moral - cruelty begets cruelty - with the message that it's best to stop the spiral at source. Just a little love and respect is all you need.

Rashdash Theatre's The Ugly Sisters continues at the Soho Theatre until 2 February.

Photo Richard Davenport.