The 2025 "Well I Liked It" awards

 Tis the time of year when I give out Canberra's 4th most relevant theatre awards, the WILIs. It's a long-standing tradition, surprisingly robust, and a standout in its field due to being completely guided by one guy's whimsy. And let's face it, it's more fun to just read the results rather than have to go to some awards ceremony where you have to look at all your competitors when you'd much rather be watching or making theatre.

"Garry Starr: Classic Penguins" was probably pre-ordained to win a WILI - not only did I pretty much mention how much I was looking forward to it when I gave a WILI to his last two shows in 2023, it also won most Outstanding show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Still, it largely seems to have passed a lot of locals un-noticed (probably due to performing in Queanbeyan at the same time as a local Awards Ceremony) but if you picked going to anything else over seeing this, you missed out. Hugely. Yes, I was a little worried going in that Starr's schtick of audience participation, goofy jokes about elevated topics and extreme physical ridiculousness maybe wasn't worth a third hour of stagetime, but I was wrong, wrong, wrong, and I'm very glad to be so. 

Joel Horwood directed a one-two punch of shows I really liked - "The Moors" at the Mill was a tense, surreal, ridiculously charming act of faux-Bronte sisters with hidden passions and natural and unnatural desires all over the place, with standout performances from Steph Roberts, Andrea Close among the cast. "Sweet Charity" at the Q is a musical which I admit I went into expecting good songs and a messy script from previous encounters, but with a lead performance like Amy Orman and a clever, abstract-but-personable staging, it became a warm, funny, stylish delight. Horwood's departure is Canberra's loss but hopefully the theatre world's gain as they explore pastures new.

Fortunately, Canberra still has Jarrad West, this year showing off his talents both as performer and director - anchoring the Hub's "Present Laughter" with a performance that allowed him to play circus ringmaster to a supporting cast that lifted to his level, then directing and appearing in scene-stealing delightfulness in "Musical of musicals The Musical" and directing a remounting of "Hand To God" that had the same level of delight as the original. I would never want to take West for granted, and hopefully 2026 gives us more opportunities to not do that.

A great interstate production was "Posh" at the Old Fitz - an intimate, brutal production of a play with a strong cast of 10 men looking at the English Class system at its absolute worst. Margaret Thanos directed with a firm hand - I didn't get a chance to see the other show that created a sensation in Sydney, her version of "Timon of Athens", retitled "I hate People" but on the basis of this I'm looking forward to seeing both her big Belvoir and STC directing debuts next year with "A Mirror" at Belvoir and "The River" at STC. 

A couple of bonus mentions - I had a great time with four different musicals - the Warumpi Band tribute musical "Bit Name No Blankets", the Hayes' "Phar-Lap the Electro-Swing Musical", the melbourne production of "Beetlejuice" and the MTC's "Kimberly Akimbo", which delivered up various chunks of music, heart and ridiculousness with a certain amoutn of epicness. It was great to have solo excellence from Christopher Samuel Caroll in "The Cadaver Palaver" giving adventure and a solo performance of power and charm. 

Hand To God, Everyman Theatre, ACT Hub, 10-20 December

 

Photo: Janelle McMenamin and Michael Moore

Three years after the previous production and the different Old Fitz production, Tyrone the puppet and his victim/handler Jason are back for an exploration of trauma, religion, lust and felt in a play with something to offend pretty much anyone. With either 4/5 or 4/6s (depending on whether you count Tyrone and Jason as separate people) of the cast all new, it's a refreshed production where the desperation and trauma are close to the surface in ways that push the comedy further. Michael Cooper's performance is still just as grounding between the shy, retiring Jason and the confident, agressive Tyrone (and just as committed in ways that I hope aren't permanently physically damaging), and it's joined by Amy Kowalczuk embracing the chance to let all her crazy hang out as his mother, Meaghan Stewart being grounded, warm and, when required, just as deeply nuts as his friend Jessica, William "Wally" Allington showing the blossoming of teen rebel Timmy as he gets all kinds of wrong attention, and Lachlan Ruffy being all the right kinds of deeply wrong as the not-very-successsfully-hiding-his-attentions Pastor Greg. 

Jarrad West restages the work with his usual precision, care and willingness to let any joke no matter how obscure hit the target. Nathan Sciberras' lighting design lets the moods shift as the show tips deeper into insanity and Nikki Fitzgerald's sound design gets us in the mood of a small-town puppet ministry and lets the demons flow out when they get loose. Special congrats to Lucy van Dooren and her crew for setting and resetting a chaotic set nightly. It's a hysterical evening in the hub and absolutely worth the visit. 

Bob Downe - 40 Ridiculous Years, Hot TKT, The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre, 7 December

A performer 40 years into their career usually has some reliably solid schtick and a  way to keep that entertaining the market. Certainly Bob Downe, he of the supreme dagginess in song, dance, hairstyle and dress-sense, has a timeless way of attacking multiple retro hits, this time largely from the year of his "birth" (1985ish), with various talks about his way of engaging in the wider world, whether it be through young people, apps, or through acquiring a younger sidekick to emulate his unique singing and dancing styles. It's a fun 80 minutes down memory lane with Bob - who's slightly evolved these days, partially due to the guy behind Bob, Mark Trevorrow, having a very active career as himself, presenting publicly at Mardi Gras and on varous ABC projects, the gags about Bob being not-very-successfully-closeted have largely disappeared into the background (though there is a video appearance by his long-term fiance, Coralee Hollow (Gina Riley)). There's choreography, there's his trademark teeth-forward, crazy-eyed vowels-only-song stylings, and there's a fabulous costume change for the encore, plus a plug for the merch-stand during the show. What more could you possibly want? 

Low Pay? Don't Pay, Canberra Repertory, Canberra Rep Theatre, 20 Nov-6 Dec

 

Dario Fo won the 1997 Nobel Prize for literature but I have to assume he's lost something in translation or in distance from the time he wrote his plays originally, as I've never really loved his mixes of loose comedy and political polemic - the attitudes within his plays are things I should like, looking at the nuances of the relationship between the state, capital and labour in the late 20th century through a comedic lense, but the polemic side tends to come on with all the subtlety of a brick and the comedy ain't exactly subtle either. This production isn't one that changes my mind on translated Fo - while it has some amusing moments and some decent imagery, it also stretched the dial at around 2hrs 45 minutes for something that should float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, it too often lumbers like an elephant instead.

If there's a reason to see this, it's to see Lachlan Abrahams as Joe, who plays this for all the ludicrousness it's worth. He's playing big but the material needs that bigness - this isn't realism and isn't served by realistic acting. Too often the performances around him feel small and timid - Abrahmas goes in hard both in the over the top comedy and the strong political polemics that the play contains, giving both genuine conviction. The performances around him don't always carry that level of weight - there's a nervousness about committing to the bit which holds this back from being as strong as it could be. 

I will say there were a reasonable number of chuckles at my performance and I'm probably a minority view (and, again, that Nobel Prize) - but for me this isn't quite the end-of-year delight I was hoping for. 

Back to the Future the Musical, John Frost for Crossroads live and Colin Ingram Inc, Sydney Lyric Theatre, til 25 Jan 2026

 

I don't want to kick a show when it's down - this is a show which has already announced an earlier-than-planned closing in January - but really, this is a case of a production that was ill-concieved from the start and only got a few minor improvements on the way through development. The "Popular Movie: The Musical" approach isn't always a disaster - a stage version can find new angles, pep up the action with some fun tunes, and bring an old property into new life - but in this case, it's mostly resulted in a story you can buy on DVD for $16 or stream on a range of streaming services being interrupted by songs that are at best servicable and at worst actively annoying. I will admit that after a long night of Shakespearean tragedy, I was as eager to watch something with a flying car, and the moment when the car flies is kind of cool, but it's a lot of show to sit through for a cool curtain call moment.

I do kinda get why it's a musical - the original film has two highlight music moments ("Johnny B. Goode" and "The Power of Love") and these are dutifuly recreated here. But most of  the remaining original songs fail to really be anything more than time-killers. Most of the performers are stuck reiterating performance decisions made when the original movie was made - Axel Duffy, Ethan Jones and Thomas McGuane may be talented actors but they're mostly stuck doing line readings originally created by Michael J Fox, Crispin Glover and Thomas F. Wilson around forty years ago. Roger Bart at least gives Doc Brown a little of his own yiddish vaudeville energy (and lends a powerful voice to songs that absolutely don't deserve it like "It Works" and "This One's For the Dreamers", both of which pretty much say everything they're going to say by the time their title has been sung). Ashleign Rubenach does benefit from a role that doesn't have performance gimmicks locked in so she can play her own bat and is delightful in all scenes.

Director John Rando does come up with some clever ideas for how to tell the story in a medium that doesn't really allow close-ups and goes all-out in the climactic race-against-lightning finale, but everyone is battling against material that really isn't good enough and wouldn't have hit the stage if it wasn't for the original movie being so beloved. Even on discount, this is really only worth it if you want to tick Roger Bart off your bucket list of performers or if you really want to see a flying car and missed "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang".  

The True History of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters, Belvoir St Theatre, Upstairs Theatre, 15 Nov-4 Jan

 

Belvoir hasn't done a Shakespeare since "Twelfth Night" in 2016 but it certainly brings it back with a vengeance this time - three hours and 15 minutes with two intermissions, largely showing grand bloody tragedy. The production could be described as minimalist (bare stage, though it's actually built up from the standard stage height to such an extent that my row B seat was right up front) and it boasts a large cast - 13 actors plus 3 musicians. The text is, as that length suggests, largely uncut though I spotted some changes in scene order to keep the momentum up after the second intermission. 

Eamon Flack directs a pacey production often played right in your face (Cordelia stood right next to me during the opening scene so I got a pretty close view of Colin Friel's wrath - using very little more than a chalk circle drawn on the floor. It is an approach that could feel like it's a production that's never really left the rehearsal room (particularly with the cast in modern dress that mostly could be their regular street clothes, excluding Peter Carroll's tropicana gear as the Fool). Still, it's a production that sustains the length and the concept - few bells and whistles exluding the musicians, the addition of strobe lights for the storm and a lot of stage blood. 

Colin Friels leads with considerable authority as Lear at the top, delivering the right level of cockiness up until the point when it becomes clear how much power he has given away and how ruthlessly his daughters are using what he's given them. A lot of Lears I've seen have played a lot of pathos early on and here it's held in reserve until after the storm - this is a Lear who rages and pushes against until he can't any more. Joining him as the three daughters are a haughty, power-greedy Charlotte Friels as Goneril, a blood-lustful Jana Zvedeniuk as Regan and a gentle Ahunim Abebe as Cordelia, a dyamic Alison Whyte as the gender-shifted Countess of Gloucester (meaning the play goes from a father and three daughters paralleled by a father with two sons to a parallell of a mother with two sons - it shows off her power and her vulnerability even moreso when violence comes against her), a gleefully twisted Raj Labade with a lust for power ever-present as Edmund, a hauntingly gentle Tom Conroy as Edgar, a stoicly supportive Brandon McLelland as Kent, a delightfully oddball Peter Carroll as the Fool, a foppish and over-his-head James Fraser as Oswald and a haughty Charles Wu as Cornwall. 

For a play that's as long as this to hold my attention for its full length, there's got to be something special in here. And this is Shakespeare with a strong beating driving energy to it - no bells, no whistles, just a strong pulse and a cast let loose on a strong text. 

The Almighty Sometimes, Q the Locals and On The Ledge, The Q, 19-22 Nov

 

(Image by Photox)

Kendall Feaver's 2018 debut play is still impressive, seven years after it's debut - looking at a mother-daughter relationship at that awkward point where adolescence phases into adulthood and a girl with a long-term mental illness begins to explore who she really is, going off her medications delivering results that are startling and moving. I loved it on its initial production, and a lot of this production services the play well. Though it's inevitable that comparing a production directed by a master of the form and one by an emerging artist, hiccups will emerge, mostly the play is illuminated well. 

A prime hiccup is the venue - the main stage of the Q is a very much bigger space than the intimate stage of the Stables, and requires a different approach. Caitlin Baker's design of hanging scrolls of paper is visually very impressive but in an air conditioned theatre the scrolls tend to crinkle in ways that upstage the actors - and the design doesn't serve to bring in the playing space the way that, for instance, the design for "God of Carnage" or a number of other shows in the venue have brought-in and focussed the action - instead it's all very grand and imposing  in ways that don't entirely serve a play with four actors where no more than three of them ever share a scene.

The four performers are the production's real strength -  Winsome Oglvie as the 18 year old at the centre of the story is fearless, strong and vulnerable, reckless, yearning and absorbing as she struggles to find her sense of self outside of her disease. Elaine Noon as her mother is similarly fearless, compassionate, desperate, seeking to find where she fits into her daughter's new world and fearing that maybe she doesn't. Steph Roberts as the counsellor combines compassion with professional distance as she seeks to transition her patient into adult care. Robert Kjellgren as Anna's possible boyfriend marks the awkwardness as he engages with mother-and-daughter while struggling with his own emerging sense of self and his history of caregiving.

Marlene Radice's compositions underscore the action gently and carefully - it's a good subtle backbeat underpinning the show.

This is a strong powerful relevant play given a production that is very much carried by its performers but is let down by a space and design that is a little too big for it.  

Equus, Free-Rain Theatre, ACT Hub, 12-22 November

 (photo - Olivia Wenholz)

Peter Shaffer's 1973 play combines a then-modern sex-violence-and-disturbed psychology story with ancient ritual in a dramatic story that ratchets up the tension as we delve deeper into the mind of disturbed teenager Alan Strang with the help of his not-that-much-less-disturbed psychiatrist, Martin Dysart. Dysart narrates at length, exposing the audience to his own professional doubts in the use of his methods as he struggles to bring the truth out of the boy - with every sequence leading up to the shattering final sequence when the horrible act that brought Alan into his care is re-enacted. The strong stylisation of the telling (with a chorus of six actors playing the horses that Alan forms a disturbing relationship with, in masks and platform-shoes that resemble hooves) lets the audience do the necessary transformation in their head and invokes the religious rites that Shaffer's play draws on. 

This production borrows the horse headpieces from Rep's previous 2014 production (reviewed here) but in a number of ways is a very different production - Cate Clelland's design gives it a sense of rings-within-rings as we zero in on Alan's mind going further down the rabbit hole with Dysart. Arran McKenna gives Dysart a sense of self-hating wit, hating his own pedantry and precision even as he keeps on applying it to the world around him, and Shanahan gives us a walled-off Strang, sarcastic and defensive but with a lot of rawness underneath which is revealed as we delve deeper. Sam Thompson as the lead horse, Nugget, has imposing presence enough to explain why he becomes an object of fascination and co-dependance to Alan, with a great stare across the audience. The ensemble works well together to provide live soundscapes (prepared by Crystal Mahon) that bring the ritual into being. 

Anne Somes ties the production together (with contributions from movement director Amy Campbell) with a strongly presentational production that holds the audience compelled til the final blackout. "Equus" is a compelling drama that needs the full physical production of a company of performers tied close together with their audience and Free-Rain's production does exactly that. 

Phar Lap: The Electro-Swing Musical, Hayes theatre company, 17 Oct-22 Nov

 

Image by John McRae

A deeply silly musical, Steven Kramer's "Phar Lap" tells the familiar story of the famous NZ-born horse who became a national phenomenon as one of the great racing horses of all time, in a fast, furious, somewhat ridiculously full-of-horse-puns-nz-accents-and-high-pitched-jockey-voices way. It's a gloriously confident show from opening number (The Race that Stops the Nation) to closing (Heart) - staged by Sheridan Harbridge in the intimate Hayes in a way that combines 1930's swing-era and 2020's dubstep and edge. Joel Granger as the titular horse has pure dopey innocence that warms us to him immediately, and leading most of the plot is Justin Smith as trainer Harry Telford, a confident elder statesman looking after the shy youngster as he emerges into fame and glory. The rest of the ensemble is strong too, from Manon Gunderson Briggs' announcer at the top of the show, through Lincoln Elliot's standoffish brother Nightmarch, Shay Debnney's S&M-tinged Jockey Jim Pike, Amy Hack's mysterious Madame X and Nat Jobe's cynical David Davis, whether in their main roles or swapping into multiple small roles all over the place. 

This is a delight from the moment the show starts to the final bows, and richly deserves the full houses it's been having. If you can't catch it this time, hopefully this will be a long runner, returning to delight audiences all over the place. 

The Pajama Game, Neglected Musicals, Foundry Theatre, 5-8 November

 Neglected Musicals has been presenting shows in a stripped-down format for 15 years in Sydney - most famously, they had a go at "Calamity Jane" in 2016, giving a production that is currently touring in revial again, but also mixes of classic, modern, better-and-lesser known shows that have not had a mainstage revival in a while - in this case, a 70 year old classic dealing with romance against the background of a labour disptue at a pajama (or, to spell it properly, pyjama) factory in Iowa. It's got lots of jokes, lots of memorable songs and a few big dance numbers, and offers some great roles siezed in this performance by the cast. The format (cast carries scripts with them and has one days rehearsal to learn the songs and the choreography with an accompaniment of a sole pianist), allows for a reasonably bare-bones presentation, though clearly in the last 15 years they've learned how to find time to appropriately costume the cast and polish up the choreography a tad.

Certainly by the final matinee the scripts-in-hand were largely formalities, with the performers confident in their roles - leads Zoe Gertz and Drew Weston in particular giving confident, brash, 50's performances completely in style, and strong support from Catty Hamilton as the ditzy Gladys, P Tucker Worley as the tight-wound time and motion man Hines, MacKenzie Dunn as the quippy Mabel and Dean Vince as the clutzily lustful Prez. Director/Choreographer Lisa Callaghan keeps the production flowing on a stage with nothing more than a few chairs here and there, and Michael Tyack musical-directs and plays the score with flourish and verve. 

This is a fine quick-and-dirty format to catch a show you may have missed - while yes, it isn't quite a full production, it's got the cast, the choreography and the costumes in place - only the expanded orchesttrations and the sets are missing and, if this production is any guide, it's a good way to catch a show I've not seen before.  

Meow Meow's The Red Shoes, Belvoir St Theatre with Black Swan State Theatre and Malthouse Theatre, Upstairs theatre Belvoir Street, 4 Oct-9 Nov (and at Malthouse 19 Nov-6 Dec and Black Swan 26 Feb-1 Mar)

 

(image by Brett Boardman)

Meow Meow is an internationally celebrated cabaret performer, who this time is involved with her accomplices in performing an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's story of punished desire. But mostly what it's about is thinly controlled chaos, with Meow Meow half tragic figure, half diva, all conquering as she performs song by herself, Radiohead, Paul Anka and Fiona Apple. It starts with three accompaniasts announcing her, surrounding her by three deconstructed pianos and each performing a short note or phrase before the accompaniment moves around her in a sonic and visual feast, delves into her climbing a mountain of junk, before engaging with stories both mythical and personal, occasionally tying in vaguely with the one about the shoes. 

To say the least, this is a long way from a narratively driven show- it's mostly a chance to spend an hour and change in the world of Meow Meow and her strange companions, in a production that is immaculately staged by Kate Champion and designer Dann Barber. It's a rich indulgent chaotic evening that finds beauty and pathos amidst the pathos, whether from Meow Meow or her support team, Kanen Breen, Mark Jones, Dan Witton and Jethro Woodward, who play multiple instruments and sing and play alongside her

The Shiralee, Sydney Theatre Company, Drama Theatre Sydney Opera House, 6 Oct-29Nov

 

(photo by Prudence Upton)

Kate Mulvaney's adaptation of D'arcy Niland's 70 year old novel loses none of its essential qualities - the story of a rough-living man who's impulsive taking of his 9 year old daughter on the road after he discovers her mother in bed with the landlord, and how they find their way towards one another takes essential Australian mythos of solitude and independance and surounds it with the truths of how interdependant the human animal actually is. After adapting two works by Niland's partner, Ruth Park ("Harp in the South Trilogy" and "Playing Beatie Bow"), Mulvaney adapts the road-story into a piece for two actors backed by a six-strong ensemble - Josh McConville absolutely convinces as someone who's lived a long rough life but has deep passions coated with history, and Ziggy Resnick as the daughter is so fresh and innocent, open for anything and taken by sudden whims and surprisingly strong devotions.

The ensemble is full of gems too - from Paul Capsis, performing two roles I'd call Capsis specials (a Kings Cross torch singer and a wandering bush poet), to Mulvaney as two complicated maternal figures, Stephen Anderson playing a mix of threatening and friendly figures, Catherine Van-Davies as a lost love and another that Macauley finds on the road, Lucia Mastrantone and Aaron Pederson as various road eccentrics, they combine as narrators and create a wider world for Macauley and Buster's story to play out on, working in concert with Jessica Arthur's staging on Jeremy Allen's deceptively simple set (adapting to be both wide open plain and gathering places, country stores, byways, inner city slums, workplaces and friend's houses). 

This is a story for the heart first and foremost, about human connection between a parent and a child, raw, strong and powerful. It's funny, incisive and tear-jerking in several places, but it's always honest and true about the people at the centre of the story. 

9 to 5, Queanbeyan Players, The Q, 31 Oct-9 Nov

 

image by photox - Ben

1980's hit movie launched Dolly Parton's acting career with a blam, along with starting Dabney Coleman's career as sneaky jerkwads that occupied most of the rest of the decade, giving Jane Fonda a rare chance to play comedy and a rare chance for Lily Tomlin to play lead. Almost 30 years later it became a Broadway musical, and now, another 15 years later, it's playing locally. The show is distinctly set back in period, including the dreaded Xerox and the early wave of women fulltime in the workplace, taking their grievances at the professional world seriously even as it weaves a fairytale farce around their accidental-then-deliberate revenge on their oppressive boss, Franklin Hart Jr. There would be no point doing the show without Dolly Parton's iconic title song, alas the rest of the score never quite lies up to that level, though there are moments of fun and introspection in the rest of the score, from independent-woman-power ballads like "Shine like the Sun" and "Get Out and Stay Out" to comic cravenness in "Heart to Hart" to a romantic duet on "Let Love Grow". Patricia Resnick's script takes her script of the movie and adjusts it for stage representation, oddly enough increasing the roles of a few of the men (love-interest Joe and son Josh, as far as I remember, never appeared in the movie originally). 

Sarah Hull directs with a brisk energy, particularly in moments of high farce like the hospital sequence, aided by a tightly choreographed cast by Lauren Chapman and a strong band from Jenna Hinton. 

The central trio of performers are gold, from Kate Einsenberg's confident but frustrated Violet who warms to the opportunities the plot gives her to Sarah Copley's initially mousy Judy, blossoming as the shenanigans give her confidence, to the spectacular Sienna Curnow, who takes the Dolly Parton template of Doralee and relishes every hollering, confident moment. Up against them, Steven O'Mara oozes sleeze as the obnoxious Hart, and Shennia Spillane is delightful as his obsequious partner-in-sneakiness, Roz. Dave Collins takes a role that could feel superfluous and makes it necessary by turning his adorability up to 11 - he's endearing whenever he's onstage, and the payoff of his relationship with Violet feels deeply earned. 

Thompson Quan-Wing's set is an adaptable marvel at shifting around the offices of Consolidated Industries and into a few other places too, and Samantha Marcedo's costumes do a great job of feeling period-appropriate without being overly parodic of the period. 

Jacob Acquilina's lighting picks out the areas of the stage well and comes up with good mood combos for the shifts into and out of fantasy, and Telia Jansen's sound hits just the right balance between impact and overwhelming the audience. 

This is a fun show, played with verve and enthusiasm by its cast - it's playful, charming and with just a little bit of heart and soul in the middle to give the pudding some heft to it. 

The Musical of Musicals (the Musical), Everyman Theatre, ACT Hub, 17-25 October

 It's been 12 years since we last joined a quartet of actors and a pianist to tell the same plot 5 times in 5 different styles, and while we have one new actor in Will Collett and a decade's wear and tear means that Jarrad West is now performing Bob Fosse inspired choreography in a knee brace, it's still mostly the show I reviewed back then. It's a more-or-less loving tribute to musical theatre storytelling, in the style of Rogers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Kander and Ebb, with the more loving attention paid to the first two and the last one and the more satiric barbs hitting Herman and Lloyd Webber, the gags coming thick and fast throughout and using five variations of the same simple plot of "she can't pay the rent, the landlord wants the rent, the grand dame gives inspirational advice, the dashing hero comes up with the rent at the last minute".

Hannah Ley's return to Canberra is, of course, a triumph, given everything she did when she was here was a triumph and her skills have not dropped one iota in the last decade or so. As the various aspects of ingenue June, from petulant country girl, neurotic new yorker, lisping simpleton, ambitious diva or ambinguously-chicago-berlin-dive-bar dancing girl, she's perfection in all of them. Similarly perfect are Louiza Blomfeld as grand dame Abby, whose advice whether stoic, drunken, spectacular, brooding or Kurt-Weill-ian is always welcome; new entrant Will Collett fitting right into whatever's needed from cocky cowboy to dimwitted nephew to slutty dancing boy, and Jarrad West enjoys various delights from dream ballet to inconveniently stopping swivel chair to a spectacular entrance look to a very fun cape to a startlingly suggestive harnesss arrangement in an OTT german-ish accent. Duncan Driver pops up from the corner now and then to narrate to perfection, filling in where the budget can't. 

Nick Griffn accompanies it all in high style on piano/keyboard with aplomb, and all in all it looks mabye just that little bit fresher than it did a dozen years ago, played confidently with maximum ridiculousness for a fun, silly, spectacular night out. 

A Chorus Line, Free-Rain Theatre, The Q, 30 September – 19 October 2025

 

(photo by Janelle McMenamin)

"A Chorus Line" hit the nerve of Broadway in the mid 70s, with its take on dancing as both a passion and as a profession, using the device of an audition where the director asks for an intrusively large amount of personal information to dive deep into the lives of 17 auditionees for an 8-person dancing chorus. It talks about how the passion is nurtured, both in joy of the achievement (Mike's "I can do that") and in escape from a messy home life (Sheila, Maggie and Bebe's "At the Ballet"), getting into how the profession gives them body dysmorphia (Connie's "4 foot 10" and Val's "Dance 10 Looks 3"), giving us a chance to know them all as individuals, before a finale where they all join in an immaculate, identical chorus of parts in a director's whole vision. It's very much drawn from the 70's encounter-group movement (it originated as a series of taped workshops, making it one of two musicals drawn largely from verbatim material opening this week, between this and "Come from Away"), and the mix of deep emotions and glib joking in the dialogue by James Kirkwood Jr and Nicholas Dante is a very 1970s broadway phenomenon, albiet one that in its original production ran from 1975 to 1990, making it at the time the longest running broadway show ever (since outrun by "Cats", "The Lion King", "Phantom of the Opera", "Les Mis", "Wicked" and  the 90s "Chicago" revival, ironic given "Chorus Line" dominated the attention during "Chicago"s initial run). 

Free-Rain's production is directed and choreographed by Michelle Heine who uses a choreographer's eye to create strong stage pictures for the story to play out in, supporting the performers as they transition in and out of dance as part of the storytelling (there's an additional credit of "acting consultant" for Isaac Gordon, so I'm not sure exactly how this worked in the rehearsal room but certainly the performers embody their roles with skill and care). Craig Johnson's 12 part orchestra underpins the production with a strong brassy Broadway sound, with moments of delicacy where required in "At the Ballet" and the ballad "What I did For Love" handled well too. I'd normally pick out the performers for individual praise but in a show with 19 prlincipals that would make this unbearably long - let's just say they each bring out the individual soul of their characters with skill and power, performing their humanity strongly. 

Zac Harvey's lighting design is precise and skilled, giving us firm beams down on each cast member in isolation as the nerve-wracking auditions begin and letting the space widen for groups to assemble. Telia Jansen's sound design balances a big brassy orchestra and individual voices well, getting the vital lyrics across articulately and giving us a well-scaled sound. 

This is a chance to see a legendary phenomenon on stage and to see a local cast at the top of their game execute one of the classics. 

Trent Dalton's Love Stories, a QPAC / Brisbane Festival production, Canberra Theatre, 24-27 September - subsequent tour to Darwin Entertainment Centre (2 – 4 October) and HOTA Gold Coast (9 – 11 October).

 A writer sits in a public square asking people to tell him about their love stories. A simple premise, played here with a mix of storytelling, video, and choreography, looking at all types of love (romantic, familial, friendships, even self-actualisation). It's a technically sophisticated telling of these stories, beginning with live video of the audience and various written declarations from the audience of their definition of love. We're introduced to the writer (Jason Klarwein), and the location, a busy pedestrian mall in Brisbane, where various regulars approach the writer with their stories or where their story is pulled out of them - with stories mixing from being told directly the audience, playing out told directly to a wandering camerman (Anthony Dyer) or in a couple of instances just played on the big screen on the back of the stage. The stories are tied together by a framing device about the writer's own relationship with his wife (Anna McGahan) but the heart and the soul of the show is some immactulate ensemble work from the cast - including the radiant Valerie Bader, the warmly yearning Bryan Proberts, the stoicly strong Kirk Page, the joyous Will Tran, the heart-rending Ngoc Phan and the warm movements between Jacob Watton and Hsin-Ju Ely. 

It's spectacularly well technically managed, with life editing and effects work from video systems tech Josh Braithwaite, and uses the full size of the Canberra theatre stage better than a lot of attempts to put plays on the bigger theatre - often plays can get swallowed whole by the space which lives more comfortably with concerts, but this one manages to fill the theatre to the back row with heart, soul and theatrical skill. If it's very much a Queensland story put on tour, well, all universal stories are local stories at their heart, and the specifics make the universal elements stand out more. Director Sam Strong and adapter Tim McGarry integrate the combination of spectacle and human moments well, with the assistance of choreographer Nerida Matthaei. It's simultaneously the simplest posisble thing - storytelling between cast and audience - and utilising the finest of modern tech to do that, and it never trips over its feet once in doing that.

I Watched Someone Die on Tiktok, Canberra Theatre Centre New Works, Courtyard Studio, 19-21 Sept

 

Charlotte Otton's solo show is a one hour dive into the extremes of social media - how a young woman growing up in a social media age has been affected by exposure to extreme images of life, death, trauma and sexuality. For someone around 15 years older than her, it's a reflection of all our worst fears of the web (and I say that as someone currently typing this review onto the web, who's aware that I wouldn't be doing this on a regular basis if the web didn't exist, and I've been pretty directly told by traditional media owners that I wouldn't be hired by them because I don't hold a relevant degree, just ... you know, several decades of being an audience, reading theatrical literature, and writing this stuff... no, I'm not bitter at all, how dare you suggest that). 

Back to Otton's show for a second - she sells her material with precision, singing, embodying, narrating and trauma-dumping like a demon. It's a tight show, circling its point and provoking all kinds of thoughts while the multimedia screens play a curated set of material from social media that merely hint at the level of 

There is a wider debate about whether social media is just the same sins that always existed with the barriers removed - the salaciousness of reporting on Jack the Ripper in the 19th century, for example, is from the same source as a modern true-crime reporting on any violent act today - but it's certainly true that the guardrails of editing and control are off. And reckoning with the implications of that is a big topic that Otton explores with precision and skill. 

Lend Me A Tenor, Free-Rain Theatre, ACT Hub, 17-27 Sept

(photo by Janelle McMenamin)

 Ken Ludwig's 1986 farce was a retro charmer even at its first productions - set in the 30s in a grand opera company in Cleveland, where two tenors, a stressed impresario, a demure ingenue, a wife, an ambitious soprano, a daffy dame, and a fanboy bellhop all collide over the course of one long afternoon and the following night. I've enjoyed it for many years -on tour in 1993 in Wollongong with Stuart Wagstaff, Rowena Wallace and Maggie Kirkpatrick, working backstage on Rep's 2006 run with Steph Roberts, Colin Milner and Andrew Kay, and now back in the audience almost 20 years later. It's still a delightful romp, using the Feydeau formula of people in lavish clothing chasing each other around from the most primal of emotions - lust, expediency, wrath, rage, and fear. 

In Cate Clelland's production, it's in the hands of a master. Timing is perfect to hit every laugh, with a cast game for everything and a set and costumes that are the peak of era-appropriate chic. Farce is the kind of thing that can easily fall off the rails if the audience has a moment to think "hey, wouldn't they do something else if they thought about that for a second..." so the answer is to go full throttle and get the performers doing something at all times to avoid thinking about it too much. And given everything that the performers are doing is delightful, it's easy to forget about any plot holes. 

Central to the production is John Whinfield as the sweet-natured Max, the dogsbody who rises through circumstance to become a conquering hero - Whinfield is sweetness personified, an underdog we're desperate to see come through and one we celebrate the triumph of. Around him is Michael Sparks doing some great seething as the constantly-stressed impressario Henry Saunders, most of the rage kept under for as long as possible before sudden explosions. Maxine Beaumot has the right mix of sweet-natured and inner determination as the not-entirely-innocent-but-we-don't-mind ingenue, Christina Falsone brings Italian passion and fire to the role of Maria, William "Wally" Allington brings a sweet nature to the slightly egotistical tenor Tito, Meaghan Stewart is all the right kinds of sultry vamp as Diana, Sally Cahill is deligthfully scatterbrained as the socialite chair of the opera, and Justice-Noah Malfitano is just the right kind of irritant as the sarcastic bellhop. (Whinfield and Allington are both also required to sing a duet from Verdi's "Don Carlos" to convince us they both would pass as opera-suitable tenors and both pass that test with flying colours)

Fourty years after it first premired, this is still a charmer - after rewrites to change the opera from "Otello" to "Pagliacci" (thus removing unfortunate blackface), a sequel, a musical and a genderswap to become "Lend me a Soprano", the bones of the original still hold true and in its current incarnation it should be bringing delight to audiences at the Hub for the next week-and-a-bit. 

Lizzy, D'Arcy and Jane, Canberra Repertory Society, Canberra Rep Theatre, 4-20 Sept

 

Joanna Norland's play looks at the creation of "Pride and Prejudice" in the context of Jane Austen's own romantic entanglements, with Lizzie's fate in her novel varying as Jane's own pursuit of love refuses to run smoothly. On the 250th anniversary of Austen's birth, it's probably worthwhile having some kind of celebration of her, but unfortunately the play itself is a little pallid - Austen comes across here as a somewhat nervy character, who seems to be very easily influenced by her characters into letting them have their own fate, rather than the behind-the-scenes mastermind plotting everything intricately together. Still, Alexandra Pelvin's production gives it a solid production, empire-line-dresses and stylish scenery and all, in a production that has some liveliness in some of the performances even when it doesn't perhaps entirely exist in the script. 

Dylan Hayley Rosenthal as Lizzie has a good wilful cynicism as the character requires, with a certain twinkle in her eye. Sterling Notley manages a tricky trio of roles as an amiable Bingley, a snotty younger Harris and a somewhat more vulnerable older one, and various modes of odiousness as Mr Collins. And Rachel Hogan drips imperious power in incarnating the dreaded Lady Catherine De Bourgh. 

Eliza Gulley frocks the ladies and frock-coats the gentlemen appropriately, and Kayla Ciceran gives a nicely open design for story to take place. 

I've liked some of Rep's other attempts at Austen but unfortunately, here, the play itself wasn't really enough to hold my attention - Austen's writing remains fascinating but, at least here, her personal life just doesn't have the same draw for me. For others it might.

The Cadaver Palaver: A Bennett Cooper Sullivan Adventure, Bare Witness Theatre Company, Canberra Theatre Centre New Works, Courtyard Studio, 12-14 Sept

 

Christopher Samuel Carroll has prepared a delightful one-man tribute to Victorian adventurers, with dramatic twists, battles, secrets and saucy seductions aplenty, delivered by Carroll with vocal and physical dexterity as he takes us from far eastern dens of iniquity to the backstreets of Edinburgh with brisk efficiency.

To a certain extent this is a simple vehicle for Carroll to show off his skills and he serves himself well - relishing his words with linguistic glee, and using various physical gags, intense pacing and a spectacular moustache to tell his tale. It's a convoluted conspiratorial narrative where ... well, some secrets need to be kept, but I can safely say that Cadavers and Palavers certainly feature high on the agenda.  Sullivan gets himself into and out of all manner of sticky situations along the way to a suitably dramatic conclusion, by way of a dramatic opening and several dramatic confrontations along the way.

 Carroll is assisted by nothing more than a set of around five Persian carpets on the ground and some sympathetic lighting by Ash Basham, operated by Riley Whinett. With nothing more than a dashing brown suit, a cane and a largely bare stage, he conjures up a whole victorian world of intrigue, adventure and suspense with aplomb, and I hope for further Bennett Cooper Sullivan adventures (or whatever else strikes Carroll's fancy) in the future. 

In the Heights, Marriner Group and Joshua Robson Productions, Comedy Theatre (and later at HOTA Brisbane), 1 Aug-6 Sept.

 

Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2008 Broadway debut is inevitably overshadowed by the show that came next, but it's a fun depiction of a place and milieu on the corner of a Washington Heights neighbourhood - deliberately somewhat small-scale as we follow the day-to-day lives one summer of a couple of Latin American characters dealing with money troubles, degraded infrastructure and urban blight. This production, grown from a run at the Hayes in 2018 to runs at the Opera House and previous tours along the NSW central coast, has a strong emphasis on the dance elements of the show, constantly moving from beginning to end under Amy Campbell's strong choreographic hand. While the plot is a somewhat familiar slice-of-life as various characters dream, romance and handle rising temperatures on the street, the execution is sharp and skillful.

Unfortunately, i was at a performance where understudy Jerome Javier was on for Ryan Gonzalez as the lead, Usnavi - Javier is undoubtedly a skilled performer and can handle the technical requirements of the role well, spitting out Miranda's dense lyrics clearly and precisely - but they're also a younger performer and the role really requires someone who can give the impression of having lived in a rut for a while, and the fit is not quite precise enough to make them a seamless replacement.   Elsewhere, the regular performers are strong - from the ever-dancing ensemble to the gossiping trio at the beauty parlour played by Olivia Vasquez, Vanessa Menjivar and Tamara Foglia Castaneda, to scene-stealing Richard Valdez as the gleeful Piragua Guy and Dayton Tavares' smooth moves as Grafitti Pete. The ensemble sell joy in numbers like "96,000", the act one climax "Blackout" and the celebratory "Carnival Del Barrio" and also emotional depth in Abuela Claudia's "Pacience Y Fe", and deliver the meat of the show well. 

Director Luke Joslin keeps the show on a fairly simple staging, leaving space on the stage for dance to explode, and Mason Browne's set design is a similarly simple design adapted for maximum utility. It's a solid production rather than a revalatory one, mostly serving as a vehicle for its perofmers and its choreographer which both drive well. 

Kimberly Akimbo, State Theatre Company of South Australian and Melbourne Theatre Company, Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne, 26 Jul-30 Aug

 When David Lindsay-Abaire decided to musicalise his 2001 play in 2021, he had the advantage of having previously worked with composer Jeanine Tesori on the "Shrek" musical, before Tesori went on to win best original score for "Fun Home" (she'd later win again for this musical). Changing technologies means that his play, previously a contemporary work, was now a period piece, and the musical doubles down on the late-90s-ness of the story, using a daggy suburban high school and its antendees to broaden out his central gimmick of a 15-turning-16 year old girl with a rapid aging disorder that means she looks like the 61-year-old Marina Prior, and her tricky relationships with her disreputable family. The musical introduces a quartet of high show-choir geeks to the cast but otherwise tracks pretty closely, including subplots about Kimberly's cheque-fraud-committing aunt,  her not-entirely-responsible parents and the boy in her class she falls in love with. 

Mitchell Butel's production manages to wrangle a small scale story onto the somewhat broad space of the Arts Centre Playhouse without too much damage, and manages to keep Kimberly central even when there are so many more colourful personalities jockeying for attention. It's not the smoothest production - the costumes and set lead towards a tendency to caricature more than perhaps is wise, but in centering Prior it knows where the humanity is in the story and lets her reactions guide us through to a joyous conclusion. 

At this point in her career, Prior could be resting her laurels in a series of comfortable revivals but it's good to see her using her intense likability in a new show that trades off that in interesting ways - playing a child in an adult body with such vulnerability yet inner knowledge that we take her and her journey to our hearts. Casey Donavan as the disreputable aunt Debra is an energetic force of nature - we've known for 24 years she's a powerhouse vocalist but her comedy sense is spot on too. Christine Whelan Browne as Kimberly's mother showcases a likeable empty-headedness in contrast to her baddy in "Bloom" earlier this year, and Nathan O'Keefe as Kimberly's dad has all the right twitchy anxiety moves. Darcy Wain as Kimberly's anagram-obsessed geek love interest is also a sweetheart, and makes it easy to understand why she goes for him. And the showchoir quartet of Marty Alix, Allycia Angeles, Alana Iannace and Jakob Rozario showcase a combination of teen desire and inner turmoil as they support Kimberly's narrative.

This is a tender, sweet little story that realises its message in the nicest way in the final moments, while bringing somewhat wild circumstances to vigorous life. Hopefully this should get a later tour and the wider audience it deserves, if for no other reason than to showcase Prior's gently powerful performance - never pushing for affection but bringing us in all the same. 

Beetlejuice, The Musical, Michael Cassel Group and Warner Bros Theatre Ventures, Regent Theatre, til September 11.

 

Adapting Tim Burton's 1988 film into a musical, Scott Brown and Anthony King's script narrows the focus onto the titular Beetlejuice (notoriously only on screen in the movie for 17 minutes) and Lydia Deetz, the Winona Ryder character - making both key actors in the way the Beeetlejucie animated series did, while giving Lydia a strong sung desire to connect to her late mother as an emotional backbone to the story. With Eddie Perfect's songs giving a varied range of material from Lydia's power ballads to a fun back-and-forth duet on "Say my Name" to a bonkers bouncy showtune on "Creepy old Guy", some thoughly character-appropriate costuming from broadway legend William Ivey Long, a set design combined with projection work from David Korins and Peter Nigrini that allows the supposedly simple house set to transform looks instantaneously as the plot requires. 

Eddie Perfect is a weird case of a creator appearing in their own work - in music theatre, we've not seen Tim Minchin appear in "Matilda" or "Groundhog Day" and Kate Miller-Heidke sat out "Muriel's Wedding" - but in many ways it's the perfect mix of performer and material - Perfect's irreverent tunes in his previous cabaret work and in his "Shane Warne" musical suit him as a performer as well, and he taks the reigns and is a suitably chaotic narrator, nemesis and semi-protagonist, keeping us entertained the entire time. Karis Oka matches him, bringing emotional intensity to her solo "Dead Mom" and also playfulness to her dealings directly with Beetlejuice anywhere else, whether trading off with him in "Say My Name" or "That Beautiful Sound" or playing with the ick in "Creepy Old Guy". Elise McCann adds to her stockiple of great solid leads with another thoroughly charming female lead as the coming-into-her-own Barbara Maitland, and Rob Johnson gradutes from a run of utility performer roles like his "Calamity Jane" part to a strikingly dorky, charming Adam Maitland. Erin Clare is a charming weirdo as Delia, and Tom Wren goes from uptight to insane to sympathetic as the role of Charles requires. 

Alex Timbers directs with verve and action for most of the show (though there are a couple of points where the second act gets a bit stuck having to do inevitable plot-stuff to get us through to the finale), and it's a lively fun musical that knows its source and delivers what an audience wants even if it's not letter-perfectly reproducing the original, instead boiling it down to its essence and hitting the core beats while playing around to give us something surprising at the same time. 

Once on this Island, Curveball Creative in association with Hayes Theatre Company, Hayes, 2-31 Aug

 

This is an odd one-  a musical version of a Caribbean retelling of "The Little Mermaid", with emphasis drawn on elements of Caribbean social politics and religious practice. It premiered on Broadway 35 years ago and in this production there's a lot of pacific-island references in the design and some of the choreography. The darker tone of the Hans Christian Andersen original is maintained here - a young woman sacrificing all for the sake of a man who's not worthy of her, while the gods around her make dark bets on her fate. The production does bring across the power of the material, which is Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's score and Ahrens's smooth script, incorporating magic, dance, and tradition. In Brittanie Shipway's production it uses the intimate Hayes stage to create a community and two different worlds of the island, both the small village where heroine Ti Moune grows up, and the grand hotel where the richer side of the island indulges themselves - Nick Pollard's set design uses the tightness of the Hayes to make the set up from what look like found objects, incorporating small elements like slatted windows and a grand gate in as the location gets more sophisticated. Choreographer Leah Howard makes sure the show moves with a mix of pacific islander movement and more traditional dance vocabularly, and absolutely belongs to the cast members. 

There's a great set of performances here too - Thalia Oseceda Santos is a powerhouse as the innocent Ti Moune, passionate and sweet and so fragile we fear for what the world has in store for her - and the quartet of god performers, Godgoorewon Knox's water god Agwe, Paula Parore's bountiful earth goddess Asaka, Cyprinana Singh's romantic goddess Erzuilie and Rebecca Verrier's intimidating god of death Papa Ge, contribute strongly to the storytelling as they impose their will on the world below them. 

There's a warmth to this folk tale even as it pushes the darkness in under the warmth, and we see the legacy of colonialism on a culture in ways that are painful to us as the darker ending emerges out of old divides. It's a gorgeously compiled production and well worth seeing.  

Circle Mirror Transformation, Sydney Theatre Company, Wharf 1, 12 Jul-7 Sep

 

We observe a small class in the middle of the US doing a six-week drama course, consisting entirely of drama exercises- we can tell it's not that successful as the four students include the co-ordinator's husband as a ring-in - and slowly we get insight into them through small moments. Annie Baker's play is precise and builds from the smallest parts - you may think nothing has happened, then suddenly you realise how much you know and have warmed to these people over the course of watching them struggling - through a small view we see the bigger world that these characters bring with them into the class and where they may take it afterwards. 

Rebecca Gibney and Cameron Daddo as the husband-and-wife team may feel like stunt casting from the outside but both absorb well into their characters - Gibney having the right slightly-smug, hippyish vibe, satisfied that her program can help the group even as her exercises wander closer to misguided psychological experimentations, and Daddo as the dropout lawyer who's realising maybe his rebellions never really set him up for the family connections that he craves. Solid also are Nicholas Brown as a lovelorn carpenter clearly looking for a connection, Ahunim Abebe as the resistant teen looking for something more substantial than this class appears to be shows a gentle warming as the time proceeds, and Jessie Lawrence as the somewhat flamboyant Theresa who realises just how much she needs to bring herself back in. 

In a moment like now when all the views from America are huge and impactful, something this small and human-scaled may feel underwhelming - but it's exactly when we need something on a personal scale . Annie Baker's a master of finding truth in small surprising moments and in making lived-in worlds for her characters, and it's the kind of thing that can easily be overlooked but shouldn't be. 

Grief is the thing with feathers, Belvoir St Theatre and Andrew Henry Presents, Belvoir St Theatre, 26 July-24 Aug

 

This is virtuso theatre - Toby Schmitz making his comeback to Belvoir after quite a while away, in a piece he's co-adapter of (along with director/co-designer Simon Phillips and lighting/co-set-designer Nick Schlieper, both of whom are showing similar virtuoisity in their own ways), offering him the role both of a father dealing with his two sons in the wake of his wife's death, and the chaotic crow that comes into their lives and provokes them with its raw, basic needs and unpitying stare.

It's an irresistable role for an actor, and Schmitz devours it whole -morphing between the introspective, bookish father and the force-of-nature Crow. The two boys are also great roles for adult performers Phillip Lynch and Fraser Morrison, both bringing a childish innocence and glee into their performances as they rebel, explore the world around them and stretch against the limitations of their lives. 

Schlieper's lighting gets a chance to bring all the bells and whistles, from a spectacular arrival for the Crow to projections taking us into the worlds of the characters, sharply shifting from intimacy to broad open spaces. Cellist Freya Schack-Arnott gives it a driving energy underneath, pushing things along with oomph and power. 

For all this virtuosity, I did feel like the spectacle at times was slightly overwhelming the meaning -  I don't feel like I came out thinking about much that was said so much as the sounds and the visions - for an adaptation of a literary work I didn't come away with many words. But it's definately worthwhile seeing a powerhouse actor in a role he absolutely barnstorms with. 

Waltzing the Wilarra, The Q and Hit Productions, 15-16 Aug (and touring around NSW, Qld and NT til October)

 

David Milroy's 2011 musical in some ways definitely resembles last year's touring The Sunshine Club - set post-world war 2 and looking at the clubs that mixed white and indigenous audiences and participants in song, dance and comedy. But Milroy's aims are wider than mere nostalgia - there's a complicated love quadrangle at the centre and the second act picks up threads several decades later and looks at the issues that block reconciliation. There's a strong thread integrating the vaudville-based-radio comedy of Roy Rene in an indigenous context, using puns and innuendo to tell the wider historical context of the state of play of indigenous treatment in the period of the show. It's quite the rich show with a touring cast of 8 plus a band of two on piano and drums,  and is smoothly directed by Brittanie Shipway with charm and skill.

As the central trio, Shaka Cook, Lorinda May Merrypor and Clancy Enchelmaier show a strong push-and-pull between the three of mutual love and respect, along with the conflicts that arise over the course of the story. Juliette Coates as the one who picks at the edges of the trio plays an entitled child well, even in the later era where she's lost none of the blatant selfishness. As club-runner Mr Mac, Jalen Sutcliffe sings like a dream and, as the memories turn more bitter in the second act, provides honesty and resentment in equal measure. As mother/carer/conflicted by her role and her soul, Lisa Maza is a strong solid presence. Hannah Underwood does double duty as both half of the double-act in act one and as an inept well-meaning co-ordinator in act two, performing both roles solidly. And Leonard Mickelo as the lead part of the double act is at once charming and incisive, delivering his jokes with a tight barb while wooing us into the story. 

This is important work, and I'm glad I got to catch it, and that it's getting a chance to reach a wider audience on its extensive Australian tour.  

M’ap Boulé, The Q and Performing Lines, 8 August

 

M'ap Boulé is Haitian Creole for "I'm on fire", and performer/writer Nancy Denis is indeed a firey powerhouse of a performer - punchy, physical, moving with beauty and wit as she tells of her background as a child of Hatian imigrants, raised in Australia and confronting the society in front of her with no apologies and no quarter given. With the assistance of songs written by the late Carl St Jaques, rap performer Kween G Kibone and musicians Victoria Falconer and Jarrad Payne, she brings us into her story, along with a quick lesson on the history of Haiti, some light choreography, a few costume changes and even some non-threatening audience interaction. She's a charming presence and her show is a fine vehicle for her skills as a performer. 

There's some strong use of Maitê Inaê's set, an intimate circle full of candles and with a dominant rough-cloth-full moon circle at the back for projections, bring us into the space with Denis and her team - it's a show that cuts deeper than it might because of Denis's charm, meaning she can bring in quite confronting topics of race, culture and the effects it has on a young woman while keeping the connnection with the audience and bringing us along on her journey.   

Spider's Web, Canberra Repertory, 24 July-9 August

 

Agatha Christie has a simple appeal to readers and theatre audiences - pure plot and puzzles with a mystery to be solved by the finale. "Spider's Web" falls into the more obscure part of her theatrical repertoire - it doesn't have the hook that her top rank plays like "Witness for the Prosecution" or "And then There Were None" have, but there are its own compensations - it plays with the whodunnit form in interesting ways, not taking itself terribly seriously without ever activley spoofing the whole thing.

The formula is so well known at this point (last spoofed at Rep with the energetic "Bloody Murder" last year) that playing it somewhat straight can be challenging, but this production plays it pretty down the line. The tone is mostly reasonably light but the characters are taken seriously - we believe in them enough to be engaged in the story. For most of the length of the show, the question isn't "whodunnit", it's "will we be able to fool the police so the wrong person isn't arrested", and us being on the side of the wrongly-accused helps the tone be a mixture of tense and comic. Director Ylaria Rogers has pitched the show just right - it's just the right side of the gap between cozily familiar and cliche. 

Sian Harrington leads the cast as Clarissa, the genteel hostess of the evening - creative, compassionate, we always wonder just what she's thinking and are usually surprised by the answer. We're mostly carried along the plot by her and she's always a watchable enjoyable lead. Adele Lewin as the bluntly-spoken gardener Mildred Peake is a delight- forthright, opinionated and a strong presence. Therese Maguire at my performance played Pippa, the stepdaughter, as an enthusiastic teenager with just the right amount of hints at her troubled past. Terry Johnson, Anthony Mayne and John Winfield as three golf-club types dragged in to assist in the mayhem are a delightfully posh set of 1950s gentlemen, helpful and slightly dufferish. David Bennett has poise and sternness as Elgin, the Butler who may know a little more than he's telling, Robert Weardon as the sinister Oliver Costello gives us good reasons to dislike him early, Leo Amadeus is suitably bemused as the inquisitive Inspector Lord, and Sophia Bate looms impressively as Constable Jones.

Sarea Coate's set design has all the charm of a mid 50s country house complete with visible garden through the french windows, and Ange Fewtell dresses the cast well, between Clarissa's bright red cocktail dress, the men's formal suit and Mildred's casual garden wear. David Brown lights smoothly with a couple of mood moments for the more thrilling bits, and Neville Pye keeps the sounds right in period.

In short, this is a delightful distracting charmer - absolutely something to take with the Rep Bar's warm Glühwein as a winter comforter.  

Zach Ruane & Alexei Toliopoulos - Refused Classification, The Street Theatre, 24-25 July

 

A tribute to early 2000s film culture and Margaret Pomeranz in particular, this two-handed comedy documentary show combines history, improv, recreations, infodumps and the dramatic reading of an Office of Film and Literature Classification report in a show that is hilarious, informative, emotionally heartwarming and politically provocative. It's a look at Australian Film Censorship history, at the changing nature of how we consume media, and at once intricately researched and completely ridiculous. 

Alexei Toliopolous and Zach Ruane at various times play Margaret and David, both in slightly cheesy grey wigs, before switching to narrate and to play other roles in the narrative - in particular, the dark nemisis of the show, the Reverend Fred Nile. The start of the show contextualises the controversy over the film "Ken Park" that Margaret involved herself in, by using the Movie Show review before she started talking about the topic (2 Fast, 2 Furious) - with Ruane a delightfully snobbish Stratton, relishing the joy of saying the word "Tyrese", and Toliopolous giving all of Margaret's passion and enthusiasm, beffore we dive into the main meat of the show - looking at how two seemingly very mainstream cultural pillars became clear forces of radical action in defence of civil liberties. Both Ruane and Toliopolous bring a lot of themselves into the show, and they're both very engaging personalities - able to both go very broad but also to respect the heart of the show, and the political point it's making even as it makes us double over with laughter. There's a very Australian sense of daggy charm and anything-can-happen in a show which is several months into a tour post Adelaide Fringe and Melbourne International Comedy Festival - for a show that has a strong technical component with video and lighting, it still feels very loose and playful, with both performers conveying a passion for their subject. 

In short, for anyone who ever watched David and Margaret in any of their TV forms, anybody who likes cultural history played out with enthusiasm, and anyone who likes a bodgy wig.  

Julius Caesar, Chaika Theatre, ACT Hub, 23 July-2 August

 

Shakespeare's grand tragedy of assassination and what comes after is notable for the title character being killed at the top of Act 3 - it's more about the world created by the tyrant as it is about him as a central character. Caitlin Baker's production captures this in a modern production - the suited entourages finding quiet spaces to plot and plan, the cynical creation of a public consensus and the manipulation that switches that consensus in seconds - and the flailing hoplessness that comes afterwards. It captures complex realpolitik in real time, moment by moment, up close and very personal.

Central to the production is Lachlan Ruffy's performance as Brutus - brooding and thoughtful, tempted to action by strong rhetoric and appeals to his intellectual honour but unable to see how he's being manipulated. Yanina Clifton as Cassius is cold fire, sharp and precise in her attack, knowing just what argument to make up until the point when all her smarts fail her and she's left to an ignoble end. Colin Giles seizes his moment in the funeral centerpiece, passionate and powerful as Mark Antony, compelling the audience with his passion and soul. Michael Sparks has the capricious power of a true Caesar, imposing and confident up until the point where he falls to arguments to go to the forum and his ultimate fate. Karen Vickery as Casca is clear, determined and wily as she switches sides in an instant, confidently serving whoever suits her best. Amy Kowalczuck as both Brutus and Caesar's wives gives emotional support in attempts to steer both men away from their predetermined fate and gets an all-too-rare opportunity to unleash her powerful singing voice in the second act. Joshua James gets a double as both the servile Lucius and the arrogant Octavius, and there's strong support from Paris Scharkie as Decius and Sophia Mellink as Cimber. 

Baker's set design is a simple catwalk that uses both ends strongly, bringing different areas into focus under Lachlan Houen's sensative lighting. Paris Sharkie's composition gives the show a strong musical backbone, keeping the tension moving. 

In short this is a powerful production of a classic - leaving the audience shaken as the price of rebellion without thought to what comes after is laid bare - as those who have no thought beyond the initial threat find themselves steamrolled by the circumstances they have created. 

Big Name, No Blankets, ILBIJERRI Theatre company and Canberra Theatre Centre, Canberra Theatre, 10-12 July (and subsequently touring to Desert Festival Araluen and Papanuya)

 

(note - photo from the 2024 Sydney Festival season - some cast changes since this run)

A biomusical about the history of the Warumpi band from the point of view of one of its members, using the inside perspective of several key family members, "Big Name No Blankets" is part rock-tribute-concert, part narrative, combining warmth, politics and pure rock power. The simple set design (an area on the left of the stage representing the Papunya land that the Butcher brothers remain connected with) and a central rock band setup with grand lighting and a projection screen at the back to take us anywhere and everywhere, using the band cases as setpieces for various scenes for the character's travels gives us something simulatenously epic- filling the stage of the Canberra Theatre - and intimate for personal connection moments in the plot. Baykali Ganambarr as narrator Sammy Tjapanangka Butcher gives genial warmth to the story, telling of how the band came together and how personal drives ended it, leading through the triumphs and the personal tragedies with an ingratiating charm. 

As lead singer George Rrurrambu Burarrwanga, Taj Pilgrim has the moves, the attitude and the voice to be a compelling frontman - from his first song to the ending he's got every rock credential you need, bringing the audience to their feet in foot-stomping, communal joy as he slides across the stage in moves that are part Hutchence, part Jagger and part traditional aboriginal dance. It's a triumph of a performance and absolutely sells the Warumpi's material with power and conviction. The cast alternate between acting and band, and are a truly rocking ensemble, playing it loud and powerful. 

With the show co-directed and, at this performance, introduced by Sammy's daughter Anyupa Butcher, and with two of his sons in the backing band, plus Sammy in as story and cultural consultant, this does feel very much like a family affair, very personal and heartfelt. And the combo of family intimacy and the power of fine epic rock music really plays well together - feeling both home-made and polished and skilful. It's a great true story that will delight anybody interested in one of the foundational music acts in Australian history. 

The Pirates of Penzance, Queanbeayn Players, The Q, 3 Jul-13 Jul

 

After a very trimmed down touring verison earlier in the year from the Hayes, it's good to have a full-cast chonky orchestra version of this Gilbert and Sullivan warhorse - though this is the Essgee version created with new orchestrations by Kevin Hocking, adaptation by Simon Gallaher and with additional lyrics by Melvyn Morrow, so the purple pants jokes are indeed back in abundance. As suits a company having a 60th anniversery, it's a frothy fun party of a show with joy bouncing across the footlights into the audience -while the Essgee version is a 30 year old revision of a 145 year old original, the only place where the age is felt is in Gilbert's victorian era freak-outs over older women having a sexuality (which is always moderated by Sullivan writing really great stuff for them to sing - one of the reasons G&S holds up to all ages is that Gilbert is fundamentally a cynic and Sullivan a sentamentalist - the two tones appeal to the different moods of the audience and somehow manage to unite gloriously harmonically in the best of their shows). 

In this production, the emphasis is on as much romping as possible, and on having as large a cast as can fit onto the Q's stage (plus orchestra) to deliver the music and some great stomping choreography. Led by Adam Best in full physical-comedy mode as a Pirate King who keeps chopping himself with his own sword and does dramatic lunges and big line readings in the grand manner, he's a delight to watch. David 'Dogbox' Cannell as the Major General is similarly fun as the finicky, goofy father of way-too-many-daughters, with all kinds of sideways nonsense thrown into the role, occasionally channelling Stephen Fry as General Melchett when in bellowing mode but also able to find some quieter moments to draw the audience in. Lachlan Eldterton as dim-but-nice hero Frederic is thoroughly charming with a smooth, gentle tenor, expressing the character's innocence in a way that is lovely to see. Louise Gaspari throws herself into the role of Ruth with enthusiasm, particularly enjoying a chance to wave a cutlass in act two. Demi Smith is a perfectly lovely soprano as Mabel, particularly when singing a squad of policemen to hopefully die in glory, despite them not really wanting to. The trio of daughters played by Emma White, Tina Robinson and Lillee Keating do some delightful scene stealing on the margins, popping up to surprise in all kindsa spots. Wally Allington as pirate assistant Samuel gives good swashbuckle, and Joe Moores as the Police Sergeant is sweetly adorable as the slightly soppy goofball. 

There's strong chorus work and musical direction under the firm hand of Jenna Hinton (who also gets to banter with the cast occasionally), and Jodi Hammond gets the cast moving in all kinds of spectacular ways. Alison Newhouse pulls the whole production together so it never quite spins off its axis to become pure nonsense - the occasional sincere emotional moment is given its due and respected. 

As a celebration of 60 years of Queanbeyan Players I can't think of a better way to launch into the next 60 years - yes, it's a look backwards at one of the classics, but it's a classic that works for a reason, and it's a show that will have people pouring into the Q and pouring back out with big smiles on their faces.