Hard though it is to believe now, Christie Whelan Browne used to hate the way she looked – a self-loathing compounded by a dance teacher who constantly put her at the back when she was young and made her dress as a dinosaur in an end-of-year concert, while the other girls looked pretty as Pebbles from The Flintstones.

She also came to hate her body internally when she struggled to conceive.

Christie Whelan Browne in Life in Plastic. Photo © Neil Bennett

But look at her now – stunning, talented, a star of stage and screen, a devoted mother to three-year old Duke and courageous enough to tell her story, warts and all, in her no-holds-barred, empowering, autobiographical, “bubblegum” cabaret Life in Plastic.

Written and directed by Sheridan Harbridge, Life in Plastic begins with Whelan Browne in school uniform. She’s in Year 9. Clutching a Barbie doll, she lisps through dental braces and is forever spraying herself with Impulse Free Spirit.

“Like all normal women, I hate myself,” she says, admitting to feeling equal amounts of self-confidence and self-loathing.

From there, she zips back to Year 6 before moving forwards to womanhood....