Theatre Shoes (Curtain Up)

 

This is one of my favourite Noel Streatfeild books but oddly, I don't own a copy of it. I know it better under the title Curtain Up, but it was rebranded by Puffin to make a series along with Ballet Shoes, Tennis Shoes, and Circus Shoes (aka The Circus is Coming). Theatre Shoes is a lovely fat chunky story about three siblings which in many ways explicitly mirrors the story of the Fossil sisters in Ballet Shoes. Sorrel, Mark and Holly are sponsored by the Fossils and exchange letters with them -- I think this might be the first time that the Fossils reappear in the Streatfeild universe, but it certainly isn't the last, and I remember what a thrill I had every time the grown up Fossils popped into another book.

Theatre Shoes is packed with wonderful, colourful characters -- the children's eccentric grande dame grandmother, cheeky Cockney Alice, solid Hannah (the motherly caretaker figure) and marvellous showbiz aunts and uncles. The wartime setting adds poignancy, and grandmother's house made a vivid impression on me -- once opulent, but now shabby and almost empty as Alice has gradually and secretly sold off the furniture to make ends meet. To this day I have a penchant for big old houses with an air of shabby, faded grandeur.

I also retain a great fondness for the name Sorrel, and I strongly related to her anxious personality and her unlikely but fierce love of acting. I borrowed this copy from the library but I really must get a copy of my own, under whichever title I can find it!