Noel Streatfeild’s classic 1936 novel about three adopted sisters who go to stage school is underpinned by spiky subject matter, in the tradition of all good children’s stories, perhaps.
Young Pauline (Grace Saif) is salvaged from a shipwreck, Petrova (Yanexi Enriquez) is orphaned in Russia, and Posy (Daisy Sequerra) is given up by her dancer mother who has “no time for babies”. So they are taken in by professor and palaeontologist, Great Uncle Matthew (Justin Salinger), or GUM for short, who promptly hands them over to two female charges at 999 Cromwell Road and departs for adventures abroad: the “pram in the hallway” is clearly no hindrance for him.
