By the time The Travelling Sisters – Lucy Fox, Laura Trenerry & Ell Sachs – come together near the end of the show to form Boadicea (the perfect name for this imposing, guitar-playing Voltron), your heart is lost. Although – did that actually happen afterwards, when they were dressed as potatoes alternating between affection and being spurned.
No, it was definitely before that. “On your marks, get set, beetroot!” Or did the swoon happen earlier, as they held centre-stage as a group of ice-skate loving bogans? Or was it from the first moments as they launched into their The Ballad of the Travelling Sisters-type theme song, the first of many fantastic musical numbers and interludes?
There’s not one aspect of their show that doesn’t draw you in and hold you there. In-between sketches, they dance and move under dim light getting changed and ready for the next scene. The writing is strong, and authentic.
Regardless of whether the audience is being led through a goat dance or lobbing invisible pork pies into an actor’s mouth causing them to choke to death, everything has a wonderful sense of craft. They’ve added extra shows at the end of the festival, so you still have a chance to see them. Seize it. They are marvels.
The Travelling Sisters
The Butterfly Club, 5 Carson Place, Melbourne
Performance: Monday 17 April 2017 – 7.00pm
Season continues to 23 April 2017
Bookings: www.comedyfestival.com.au
For more information, visit: www.thetravellingsisters.com for details.
Image: Lucy Fox, Laura Trenerry and Ell Sachs are The Travelling Sisters (supplied)
Review: David Collins