The Suitcase Kid

Published Tuesday 28 August 2007 at 18:05 by Nick Smurthwaite

Being big for her age is the least of ten-year-old Andrea’s problems. What really bugs her is that, since her mum and dad split up, she has to divide her time between two homes.

Sadly for Andy, as she prefers to be called, neither of these homes feels like the cosy cottage where she grew up. Both her parents now have other partners and along with that trauma comes the even worse imposition of step-siblings. At one home there is the revolting Katie, who torments Andy about her weight and her boyish name, and at the other, impossibly spoilt twin toddlers, Zen and Crystal.

Poor unloved Andy is stuck in the middle of all this resurgent nesting, feeling she doesn’t belong anywhere. Only Radish, her trusty cloth rabbit, is to be relied upon.

Jacqueline Wilson’s particular gift is to bridge the gap between the child’s black and white world of simple pleasures and reactive spite, and a sophisticated grown-up world of half-truths, compromise and vested interests.

Andy’s dilemma is one faced by thousands of kids, and in Vicky Ireland’s lively and engaging adaptation you find yourself seeing it from all sides, even though we are clearly meant to sympathise with the young heroine.

Sarah-Lee Dicks as Andy combines sweetness and desperation to good effect, while Kerry Gooderson provides a succession of scene-stealing cameos, not least Andy’s nemesis Katie, so convincingly ghastly you have to restrain yourself from stepping out of the audience and giving her a good slap.