Review: LITTLE SISTER, The Glitch

Photo credit: Harry Elletson

Twenty years is a long time to live with a question mark.

Little Sister opens with a disappearance that never left anyone alone and then calmly places a bloodied woman on the family doorstep, simply asking the question – what if she’s back?

The story, as all good folklore seems to be, is about three sisters; Shona, the wild older sister who disappeared mysteriously two decades earlier when she was just 14, Sally, the dutiful middle sister, and Bridget, the innocent youngest sister. And it’s the relationship between the sisters that drives everything. When they talk to one another, they speak like siblings who have spent two decades perfecting avoidance – there’s plenty of resentment, guilt, and fear, but also a begrudging fondness. In the end, it feels like life has carried on, technically… emotionally, not so much.

It might sound like Little Sister is a depressing play, but there’s a lot of humour too, and it works on what comedians call the hot and cold shower technique – throw in some genuinely funny lines, then surprise everyone with the horror or the fear or the uncertainty that might still make you laugh, but in a much more nervous way.

The performances are what make it work – the women feel fully formed from the first few minutes, and there’s no confusion about who they are. Even when the tone veers between comedy and something darker, the acting never tips into melodrama, and the arguments feel like arguments that have been brewing for years, not lines being delivered for effect.

Liam Rees’ direction is tight and confident. The pacing doesn’t rush the tension, meaning the quieter exchanges are allowed to sit just long enough to become uncomfortable. That’s where the creepiness really starts to seep in, but in the pauses, the half-finished thoughts, the way one sister looks at the other and doesn’t quite say what she’s thinking.

The design supports all of that. Lighting is used with restraint, altering the mood subtly rather than announcing every turn. Sound creeps in and out, building unease in the background rather than slamming you with jump scares, and it all feels deliberate.

And then the twist, which, after one big shock, then just edges into view, cleverly and carefully seeded throughout – writer Alice Flynn doesn’t cheat; the clues are all there, but you’re looking at them from the wrong perspective most of the time. And the folklore thread, initially background texture, sharpens into something more pointed which reframes earlier moments without feeling manipulative, and that’s no small achievement in a story like this.

At the end, it leaves one uncomfortable thought hanging in the air: if the past really did knock after twenty years, would you recognise it – and would you let it in?

**** Four stars

Reviewed by: Lisamarie Lamb

Little Sister plays at The Glitch in London until 1 March, with further info here.