Review: WHAT THE DOLLS SAW, VAULT Festival

The world's greatest dollmaker died and his family have come together to mourn the death of their father and husband. While their showbiz obsessed mother is grieving a man who wasn't exactly how people perceived him, three sisters start to untangle a series of secrets.

Nic Lamont writes a dark and eerie play that plays into morbid curiosity and crafty storytelling. While the plot isn't groundbreaking in terms of originality, she manages to hook the audience with intriguing writing. Dysfunctional and overflowing with trauma, Christina (Holly Morgan), Megan (Lamont herself), and Zara (Sasha Wilson) set off on a chilling self-exploratory adventure.

The mystery develops as the morphology of their family comes to the light. Overdramatic and loud personalities influence a less than natural script that perhaps frames the story as a non-realistic play. Their mother Rose (Rosie Fordham) - an ageing actress who's forced them to do routines in tap shoes and top hats for their whole lives - is an awfully blunt figure who reeks of control and je-m'en-foutisme thanks to Fordham.

Shadow puppetry unravels the narration while the sisters dig deeper into family history with Lisa Millar's direction. What The Dolls Saw is an ambitious show; with a podcast-influenced true crime approach, it moulds together grand family drama and situational comedy with a a soft stroke of horror-thriller. Fordham's delivery makes up for the unfortunate lack of subtlety in text and performance, single-handedly making the piece actively interesting.

What The Dolls Saw isn't Lamont's best - the plot is this, the human relationships are too caricatural, and the feminism portrayed could be more layered - but it does the job.

What The Dolls Saw runs at VAULT Festival until 9 February.

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