Never Closer, Off The Ledge Theatre, Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre, 19-28 February

 

Photography - Photox - Ben Appleton

Grace Chapple's 2022 play premiered downstairs at Belvoir as part of the independent 25A season, and two years later got a run upstairs as part of the formal season. It's a play about five young friends in an Irish border town, starting in 1977 when they're 18 and enjoying summer holidays, against a background of occasional explosions and possible violence due to the ongoing Troubles. We flash forward to Christmas ten years later, when the friends have dispersed somewhat but are reunited when one of them, who's been living in London for a while, returns with her fiancé, an Englishman, and the mix of old tensions, regrets and the ongoing political tensions bubbles under until things boil over in a shattering climax. An epilogue 30 years later looks at the current generation and how the fallout of their parents' decisions have landed on them. 

Off The Ledge's production is a solid production of Chapple's text - Lachlan Houen directs with a sense of the tensions and the messiness of old friendships reunited - the desire for reconciliation and the regret at old hurts bumping up against each other. He has a rich cast - Emily O'Mahoney as the resentful Deirdre holds a lot of the tensions of the play within her and carries them well, Joel Hrbek as the gentle Jimmy is heartwarmingly kind, and Pippin Carrol as the outsider English Harry is wide-eyed-ly shocked at the hornet's nest he's wandered into while never quite breaking etiquette to escape. 

This is a skilled piece of new Australian writing given an engaging production in the intimacy of the Courtyard studio and is well worth 90 minutes of your time. 

The Taming of the Shrew, Lakespeare, Lake Tuggernong Park (and other venues) , 17 Feb-1 Mar

 Photo by Photox

This is my first time seeing Lakespeare in its natural environment (by a Lake) after seeing "As You Like it" in a pub and "Macbeth" in the B, and it's a delightful experience. These are, by their nature, broad, crowd-pleasing productions and this does indeed please the crowd with a broad audience-friendly production of one of Shakespeare's more problematic comedies. The gender flip in this production tries to combat the more problematic side and bring out the humour, but in essence this is still a play about marriage as a financial rather than an emotional choice, and one in which a massive amount of psychological torture is enacted on one of the lead characters to get them to submit to their partner. 

Karen Vickery directs the cast to play the text fairly full-on, and, particularly in the central Petruchia/Kit plot, this succeeds. She's helped by Ylaria Rogers' performance which can fairly be described as roistering, giving the character a vast amount of confident attack on those around her. Michael Cooper as Kit gives the character a delightful sullenness which given the state of the Paduan marriage market around him is perfectly understandable, and his shock at multiple outrages hitting him is delightful. Yanina Clifton as Grumia serves laughs on a regular basis, reacting wtih just the right amount of shock and awe to keep the audience tickled. 

The Bianco subplot is a bit more complicated - Shakespeare fills it with a lot of deceptions and complications and it's got to be said that Bianco himself doesn't come across as much more than a pretty something to be argued about for most of the subplot - his preferences play a remarkably small part of the material. It's strongly performed but it doesn't entirely escape feeling like empty time-filling as we get the contractual negotiations and impersonations that make up the subplot when we could be getting an insight into how Bianco is thinking and feeling. There's some great hautiness from Guiliana Baggoley as Baptista, Alice Ferguson is delightfully perskikety as Gremia, Alistair James McKenzie is indeed quite pretty and Blue Hyslop is clowny perfection as Biondello gets into a more-than-usually-ridiculous impersonation. 

Costume Designer Helen Wotjas gives a great sense of Renaissance Italy with practicality for running around on a Park Lawn for two hours. Rachel Henson's millinery is also a highling with some sutiably outlandish things for the various characters to don with enthusiasm. 

Lakespeare is by this point 7 plays deep in an ongoing tradition, and the tradition is nicely upheld in this production - it's a fun entry point to Shakespeare that leaves you with plenty to think about afterwards and a lot to delight about in the moment. 

Dave 101 - an Introduction to Poor Life Choices, Canberra Cabaret Festival, ACT Hub, 19 and 21 Feb

(Photo - Photox - Ben Appleton)

When entering the Hub stage for Dave Collins' cabaret, one's struck by the dominant couch onstage. But it's a sign of how relaxed Collins is on the stage that he can put his feet up and still draw an audience to him in a mix of personal stories and diva classics, from the second he launches into "When you're good to Mama" til his departure from the stage, including a couple of duets with friends Kara Murphy, Louiza Blomfield and Amelia Andersson-Nickson. The structure, an autobiography from primary school to now, ties together songs about love, lust, work and vibing with friends, and Collins gives it plenty of personality and his own touch of charm-with-a-slight-side-of-ewwww. 

Collins has always been a fun performer to watch, with a massive voice that rattles the walls of the ACT Hub stage, and a personality that matches. And this is distilled Dave in a one-hour format that gives him chances for plenty of big notes in a song catalogue that largely draws on music theatre and divas (from Chicago to Shrek to Jeckyl and Hyde to Judy Garland to Cry-Baby) and with plenty of laughs to go with the singing. 

 

Matters of the Heart: A show about LOVE - with a cliche-free guarantee, Canberra Cabaret Festival, ACT Hub, 19-20 Feb 2026

 

(Photo by Ben Appleton - Photox)

Deborah O'Toole's cabaret show explores her twin passions - singing and art - in a show exploring the less obvious kinds of love songs - nothing about first love or love-gone-wrong, and plenty looking at the deeper parts of the heart. She draws more from the pop songbook than from the more traditionally musical-theatre-type stuff that normally hits cabaret, and intersperses it with personal commentary and with drawings on her ipad that are duplicated on two screens out the front. Accompanied by the skilled Caleb Campbell, she sings a range of emotional pieces strongly and clearly, communicating right to our hearts in ways funny, soulful and all ways full of heart.

One nitpick - the time spent at the ipad means time not directly engaging the audience, and the mix between the two feels slightly off when she'll start drawing mid-song - the joy of experiencing these songs together is to be engaged between performer and audience, and breaking the connection, however briefly, means there's a certain amount of reset that needs to happen. But O'Toole does create something beautiful out of it with personal charm and flair, and it's a fine launch for the Canberra Cabaret festival. 

Barbra: The Greatest Star, Hayes Theatre Company, Hayes Theatre, 21 Jan-14 Feb 2026

 (Photography by John McRae)

Barbra (no surname needed) is a divisive figure - too egocentric, too quirky, too much. But she's also one of the great modern divas with a distinctive personality, voice and approach. So a concert tribute to her doesn't sound like the worst idea in the world. And this is a group of talented performers putting their all into her songbook. Unfortunately, for me, it doesnt quite hit the heights, so much as the middles.

The general aesthetic feels very 1970s light-entertainment, of the type parodied by Gina Riley on "Fast Forward" when she was spoofing "The Saturday Show". The songlist, particularly in the back half, leans towards Barbra's more pop elements - "Funny Girl" gets 5 songs, but "Hello Dolly" only gets one, and there's nothing from "On a Clear Day You can See Forever" or "Funny Lady", or her broadway debut "I can get it for you wholesale" - a venue known for muscial theatre being this light on genuine musical theatre songs contributes to the "bitsy" nature of the concert. It also feels like the four talented performers - Tana Laga'aia, Laura Murphy, Stellar Perry and Brittanie Shipway - are having their very distinctive personalities swamped by Barbra - Laura Murphy is a performer who's idiosyncracies I loved in "Cry Baby" and "Shrek", and here despite showing off powerhouse pipes, she never gets to be the weirdo I wanted to see (if she'd been given "Miss Marmelstein" from "Wholesale", I bet she would have nailed it). It's well sung and mostly well delivered but it all feels a little too mid - only when it's hitting full pelt musical theatre power like a four-way-attack on  "Don't Rain On My Parade" does it really feel as powerful as it's capable of being.

Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, Nicnac Productions, Old Fitz theatre, 13 Jan-7 Feb 2026

 Photography by Tony Davison

A woman is waiting in a bar, drinking her drink, when the table next to her is filled by a man with bruised knuckles and an obvious temper. Over three scenes, they meet, spend the night together and early the next morning, they look at possible lives together - despite both clearly having short fuses and a powderkeg of emotions inside that could explode both of them before too long. John Patrick Shanley's play is over 40 years old but the types it displays are familiar, damaged people who we fear could do damage to one another as easily as they could to themselves - and while it never quite tips over the edge we're left in constant tension that it could any moment. 

In some ways this play is an actor's exercise, giving them a chance to play extreme figures discovering tenderness neither are sure they deserve - but this production has found two great actors to exercise with - Jacqui Purvis and JK Kazzi are both a powerful pair of combatants and we're glued them all the way through, even during a scene-change which is a ballet of give-and-take between them. Director Nigel Turner-Carroll gives the production just the right amount of tension on its way to a surprisingly satisfying payoff. It's a minimalist production (only a little bit of furniture with a few clever lighting effects) but a powerful and engaging one. 

Amplified: The Exquisite Rock and Rage of Chrissy Amphlett, Jacaranda Productions, Belvoir St Theatre, 29 Jan-8 Feb (followed by Her Majestty's Theatre Ballarat, Geelong Arts cetre, Comedy Theatre Melbourne and Seymour Centre Sydney until April - further bookings pending!)

 Images by Jade Ellis

Sheridan Harbridge has become a performer I'll follow anywhere. After striking supporting performances in Kill Climate Deniers, The Sugar House and Calamity Jane, she claimed centre stage as the original lead in Prima facie, before pivoting to directing such loose fun shows as 44 sex acts in one week, Dubbo Championship Wrestling and last year's Phar Lap, taking time to give a definitive Blanche DuBois downstairs at the old Fitz that I saw at first preview and therefore didn't review but just gaave a WILI to in 2023 (the rules of reviewing are simple - I don't review previews as they're not meant to be in review condition yet). Now she returns to centre stage to tell the story of one of Australia's rock godessses, writing and co-concieving a show that celebrates Chrissy Amplett in her raw, unfiltered glory, through song and stories of one woman's rise to rock supremacy and some of the many many battles that she fought along the way. 

Harbridge doesn't impersonate Amplett, but she channels her power anyway, in stories both from her perspective (drawing on her autobiography and a planned one-woman-show-that-Amphett-never-quite-got-to-perform), and from those around her, the audiences, the roadies, the collaborators and the enemies she got along the way. It's a powerful tale and a strong evening, playing more than just the hits, drawing on the backcatalogue to illustrate aspects of Amphlett as well as herself in a show that's both spectacularly personal and deeply invested in sharing the work of its subject, combining with a rocking band of musical-director-and-guitarist Glenn Moorehouse, bassisst Ben Cripps, keyboardist Clarabell Limonta and drummer Dave Hatch, under Paul Jackson's almighty lighting rig that shifts moods with aplomb.

This first Belvoir season has already sold out and it looks like this is going to be seen absolutely everywhere, but you should rush to see it simply to get your soul shattered and rebuilt by the powerhouse performer that is Harbridge in a rare case of a tribute show that makes both performer and subject look bigger together. 

Hamlet Camp, Modern Convict, Carriageworks, 7-25 Jan

 Image by Daniel Boud

This is very much a chance for three former-young-theatrical-turks of the late 2000s/early 2010s to play together - all have previoulsy played Hamlet, Cowell in a Bell production in 2008, Leslie in an MTC production in 2011 and Schmitz in a La boite production in 2010 in Brisbane followed by a Belvoir production reviewed here in 2013 which Leslie took over when Schmitz left early to be in an international TV series about pirates, "Black Sails". Now the three team up in a play written by all three looking at three survivors of the role, how they've reacted to directorial concepts and the various challenges of the part, and how life after the role-of-all-roles goes. It's witty though very in-jokey, and clearly a vehicle for their individual talents. Pre-show, they each perform a poem about various aspects of themselves-  Schmitz starts off talking about his other day job working the counter of one of my favourite second-hand-book-stores (it makes it somewhat weird that I may have purchased a cheap thriller or a a preloved play from him); Cowell looks at his connection to his stuff while he's travelled overseas has panned out;  and Leslie looks at his career from the inevitable-young-Western-Australian-of-a-certain-age-Ship-To-Shore-performance (the very anglo Leslie played the very not anglo Guido Bellini) and having roles stolen by Heath Ledger, to his current life watching tv with his kid and wondering how he compares to the perfromers who his kid likes. 

All three are very much playing to their strengths - Schmitz is sardonic, Cowell bullish and bold, Leslie tense and neurotic -  and while the show does feel more like three talents gathring to entertain themselves and us rather than anything particularly deep and thoughtful about the artifice of acting. But as a summer fling for the performers, it's perfectly servicable. 

Mama Does Derby, Windmill Production Company in association with Sydney Festival and Adelaide Festival, Sydney Town Hall, 15-22 Jan

Combining spectacle and personal narrative, "Mama Does Derby" tells the story of a mother and daughter who've been each other's mutual support system for a number of years, moving to a small town to restart their lives yet again, and what happens when... well, the title happens. Theatre on roller skates is not entirely unknown ("Starlight Express" gets a shoutout in the script, and there's always "Xanadu" too) but this is a show that uses the roller skates as support to the mother-daughter story. There's a lot of elements playing in here (a sparkly-clad trauma demon in high heels, some driving lessons for the daughter, an emerging friendship, some counelling sessions plus the roller derby and a three-piece band playing support and occaisonal supporting roles) but Virginia Gay's script keeps it all in balance with a nice dry wit, and Claire Watson serves the script well with a clever aesthetic, using the derby-team as stage crew rolling set pieces on and off.

I will pause and say that, as a non-traditional theatre venue, Sydney Town Hall has to use temporary seating, and in my long experience of sitting on temporary seating, what they have this time was somehow the most massively uncomfortable thing I've ever sat on - I felt the seat distinctly sagging under my weight (which, yes, I'm a husky guy, but still, this is public seating, if they're going to do stuff below a certain grade they should warn people). The show is 90 minutes long and I was repositioning myself at every scene transition to try to find a comfortable position - never finding one. However I was still enjoying the show despite the horrendous seating, and this is more a note for the venue than the production.

Back to the show. Gay's writers note captures some of the vibe: "We wanted to talk about the anxieties that Clare Watson & Virginia Gay torment us, the things that stop us from sleeping at night (or haunt our dreams when we do), and we wanted to do it in the context of a comedy horror where those demons take physical forms, because Buffy actually is the most important text of my generation, and I need to pass its learnings on". It's a very well done piece of work even if on post-show analysis it does feel like some elements are pushing in different directions - the script emphasises the daughter and the meat of the play is dealing with her trauma, but the roller derby aesthetics all belong to the mother, and Amber McMahon is a powerful force in the role of Maxine as she has been in Sydney theatre for quite a while. Elvy-Lee Quici as the daughter holds her role solidly and is a convincing protagonist, holding the show together. Aud Mason-Hyde as friend/teasing partner Hux is great at delivering Gay's driest quips. Benjamin Hancock as trauma-demon Nathan has spectacular physicality, slithering around the stage in the highest of high heels. The athletes of Inner West Roller Derby League do a great job both as performers and as stage crew moving setpieces around the stage in perfect physical co-ordination, and the three-piece band led by Joe Lui are tight, rocking and underscore the show well. It's a lush, enjoyable spectacle that will leave you with a grin on your face. 

Dear Son, Belvoir St Theatre, Queensland Theatre Company and State Theatre Company of South Australia, co-presented with Sydney Festival, Belvoir St Upstairs Theatre, 8-26 Jan

 Image by Stephen Wilson Barker

Isaac Drandic and John Harvey's adaptation of Thomas Mayo's collection of letters from indigenous men to their fathers and sons explores deeply personal narratives of joy, sorrow, connections gained and lost, and it's an example of positive masculinity at its finest. A simple setup - an outdoor recreation shelter with BBQ and firepit, is the site where 5 men gather to tell various stories taken from Mayo's book of letters written in response to a racist cartoon in a News Corporation paper about Aboriginal men not knowing the names of their children. It's a case of the response vastly overwhelming the cause in both power and breadth, as the five actors (Jimi Bani, Waangenga Blanco, Kirk Page, Aaron Pedersen and Tibian Wiles) bring us into their stories, with sound, movement and with powerful projections (video designed by Craig Wilkinson, AV realised by Susie Henderson). Drandic directs with a hand that lets the actors take ownership of other people's stories, both solo and shared across the group - with the finale letting the five men talk in their own persona of their family connections. It's an emotional journey, and a show both exposing, emotional and ultimately heart-holding as it gives us a chance to see how tough family relationships can still hold together even in the roughest of circumstances.