The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Canberra Philharmonic Society, ACT Hub, 12-28 Mar

 

A musical about children at a spelling bee may sound like a particuarly gruelling evening of precociousness, but filtered through the brain of an improvisational team led by Rebecca Feldman and the musical assistance of William Finn (who's work has been ofen described as Sondheim-esque, mostly due to a lot of his songs sounding very much like what would happen if someone sung their therapy), it's a hilarious, incisive and even occasionally heartbreaking musical about an unsually passionate group of kids discovering things about themselves, whether it be triumph, friendship, a resistence of parental expectation, a sudden bodily betrayal or surprising intelligence in places they never expected. 

Philo's production is a tightly cast and well-woven production, mixing in improv and audience participation into the mix as various guest-spellers are tagged in to participate. The three adults of the show (Amy Kowalczuk as the ex-bee-champion-and-present-bee-booster Rona Peretti with a truly impressive lady-bun, Tim Stiles as comfort-counsellor-and-community-service-server Mitch Mahoney who discovers his inner sympathy with the kids, and Michael Cooper as the chaotic word-pronouncer Vice Principle Panch) more-or-less organise things while the main cast of six kids go through their individual traumas - Amelia Andersson-Nickson as lonely Olive, introducing herself with the song "My Friend The Dictionary" before  breaking our hearts with the climactic "I love you Song"; Dave Collins grotesquely marvelous as the adenoidal, obsessive, magic-foot possessing William Barfée, constantly suffering under an unpronounced acute accent; Meaghan Stewart as ultra-achiever Lograinne Schwartzandgrubinnaire, coping with two very excitable dads; Joe Mansell as the goofily confused Leaf Coneybear; Ella Colquhoun as the over-it-all Marcy whose accomplishments are beginning to bore her.; and Sterling Notley as the highly accomplished Chip Tolentino whose one slipup may be due to the end of his pre-adolescence...

Nathan Patrech directs a show that could easily become genuine pandemonium and instead is just on the right side of controlled chaos. Choreographer Lachlan Ruffy plays up the goofiness with just the right amount of showbiz pizazz. And Samara Marinelli's musical direction gives high quality harmonies and a nicely bubbling soundtrack underneath. 

In short, this is a show that will make you giggle up until the point where it briefly breaks your heart, about overacccomplished kids who learn how to enjoy themselves (and one dimwit who discovers maybe he isn't as dim as everyone thinks). It's a charmingly fun show that should induce multiple giggles. 

My Brilliant Career, Melbourne Theatre Company, Canberra Theatre Centre, Canberra Theatre, 7-15 Mar (and subseqently Sydney and Wollongong)

 

Five years after Belvoir's somewhat similar non-musical adaptation (down to sharing a lot of the same doubling and also having a piano on stage), the MTC's musical version shows up. There's some different points of emphasis - being a musical, the romance plot gets a lot more stage time here (being helped by Raj Labade's efortless charisma as Harry Beecham and his pure chemistry, in this case with understudy Melaine Bird as Sybylla) and some of the class questions that come up in the M'Swat section of the story seem comparitivley raced through on the way to the finale - but it's still Miles Franklin's classic story of a young woman emerging out of 19th century Australia on the way to finding herself and her options. Sheridan Harbridge and Dean Bryant's book takes the first person narrative of Franklin's novel and gives us a heroine who's simultaneously highly willed and befuddled as she emerges into adulthood over the course of a few years. The score by Matthew Frank and Bryant runs high on self-empowerment-ballads and is performed largely by the cast who fade in and out of supporting roles in between time on percussion, guitar, keyboard and double-bass. 

Marg Howell's set of an area of outback scrub that can upgrade to the grand mansion Caddagat and downgrade to the scrubby M'Swat farm, and she costumes the performers in adaptable outfits that feel part-turn-of-the-century and part now. The production moves swiftly and cleverly across the runtime in a stylish, capable production from Director Anne-Louise Sarks, and it's difficult not to adore Sybylla and her awkward launch into adulthood.  

Head over Heels, Well Done Creative, Hayes Theatre, 20 Feb-22 Mar

 A pop musical using the songs of the Go-gos with a plot drawn from the 16th Century pastoral romance "Arcadia" by Sir Phillip Sidney, "Head over Heels" takes place in a blissful kindgom disrupted by multiple love plots and an oracle's prophecy, involving mixed gender romances including some crossdressing, a threat to the ruler and a trip through the forest on the way to a happy ending. But in this production it's largely an excuse for a whole lot of queer joy with a bunch of performers breaking out in songs like "We Got the Beat", "Our Lips are Sealed", "Vacation", "Beautiful" and the Debbie Carlisle ring-in "Heaven is a Place on Earth". Ellen Simpson directs a clean fun frolicsome production on Josh McIntosh's adaptable set as identities are twisted, rearranged and meddled with all over the place on an adaptable space with clever units used to reveal, conceal and show off the performers. 

Stealing a lot of the show is Shannen Alyce Quan as the princessy Pamela who gets carried away by passion in the most delightful of ways - they have a goofy pleasure in their performance that makes everything they do fun. Gaz Dutlow's high-drag oracle Pythio radiates power and poise at all times, setting up and resolving the situation with aplomb. There's also a lot of joy from Nancy Denis as offsider Dametus, mostly observing the consequences of the various nobles running around her until finally getting a part to play in the finale. 

Musical director Zara Stanton keeps a tight rocking band working all the way through, and Ryan Gonzalez choreographs with 80s cheese aforefront as the ensemble moves tightly through the pop-rock classics. All in all it's 120 minutes of joy in pop-cultural form. 

The Elecution of Benjamin Franklin, Griffin Theatre Company, Belvoir Downstairs, 21 Feb-29 Mar

 

Returning to the space where it all began 50 years ago, this revival of Steven J. Spears' worldwide hit is a compelling revisit of an era when homosexuality was still illegal, when elecution lessons were considered the social-climber's ticket to success, and when the youthquake of Jagger, Bowie and Skyhooks smashed against the Australia still despearate to pretend it was still the 1950s. Simon Burke takes on the mantle of our central figure, alone onstage but building up a world around him - of Bruce, his closted friend/lover/playmate, of the censorious neighbours, of the various clients including Mrs Franklin and her stuttering son Benjamin who explodes into his life and shakes everything up with a few surprising revelations about what a 1970s 13-year-old can get up to. Declan Greene's production is set very much in the original era with Isabel Hudson conjuring up a room with the tiled floor, green curtains, many many tchotchkes on the walls and a very very active telephone for Burke to interact with.

Burke owns the stage as a figure who's sarcastic, snide, clearly very much a sexual being keeping a lot of himself under wraps a lot of the time, and finally a figure who's been broken by society's judgements. It's a marathon part, and Burke holds the stage like the star that he is - compelling from startling entrance to final blackout. 

The Normal Heart, Sydney Theatre Company, Opera House Drama Theatre, 9 Feb- 14 Mar

 Photo - Neil Bennett

Larry Kramer's 1985 play is an urgent, visceral piece of writing - an expression of rage over the inaction of various levels of government and media and the gay political response to the AIDS virus. Kramer centres himself as protagonist and storyteller, as he gets dragged into gay politics at its most urgent moment, and the inevitable personal consequences as he clashes with those around him who he sees as compromised or inactive. It's true that Kramer does lack sufficient distance to give a fully rounded version of himself or those around him, but he captures a time and a moment with pure "I was there" energy. In this production, directed by Dean Bryant, played in an institutional room (designed by Jeremy Allen) that looks like many of the hospitals, medical centres and community buildings where the activism was born, it feels very much like being in the heat of the moment when it all happened.

Mitchell Butel leads the cast as Kramer's self-portrait, Ned Weeks, a complex mix of activist, seer, lover, sentimentalist, cynic and holy terror. We feel exactly why he's like this with a few quick memories of his history with his straight brother, and we ride along with him all the way to the inevitable conclusion of those battles. Alongside him are Tim Draxl as the compromised and compromising Bruce, eager to make inways without a war, Keynan Lonsdale as Tommy, the volunteer whose life becomes taken over by the crisis, Nicholas Brown as Felix, the partner who bears the brunt of a lot of Ned's rants but stays anyway, Emma Jones as the doctor who tries to keep things just-the-facts until it becomes too overwhelming to do that any more and she joins in the rage. 

The bigger stage of the Drama theatre and some clunky scene transitions means that this falls behind the Everyman Theatre production from a decade ago in the loss of intimacy, but this is still a strong production of a major work from a major company.  

A Mirror, Belvoir St Theatre, Upstairs Theatre, 21 Feb-22 Mar

 

Plays with a twist are the hardest to review - particularly this one, where when we arrive we're expecting to see a play - but the stage is set for a wedding, with groom and registrar and best man standing by, handing out programs of the wedding to the audience with an order of service. But there are hints that all is not as it should be - as you climb the stairs to the upstairs theatre, all the posters of previous shows normally on the stairs are marked out as "censored by the department of culture", and the back of the order of service includes an Oath of allegiance with promises to "offier my body and mind to the eternal glory of the Motherland". Of course this is no ordinary wedding, but instead we're involved in a story about art and its influences, and those who try to control it. 

The core ensemble of Rose Riley, Eden Falk, Faisal Hamza and Yali Ozucelik are a strong unit, playing the two levels of the play with skill and care, as the facade of the wedding slips into the storytelling and it is apparent the story we're being told is one at great personal risk. The nature of the risk doesn't become completely clear until the finale, but there's enough indication along the way of what might be coming any moment to keep tension throughout for a tight 1 hour 50 minutes without intermission. Angelina Daniel's set looks simultaneously realistic and yet adapts to the other requirements of the story with the help of Phoebe Pilcher's lighting design. 

I'm being deliberately obtuse about the content of Sam Holcroft's script, because the best way to enter this show is to know as little as possible and to be engrossed by the questions it asks. It's not a show presenting easy answers to challenging questions about personal integrity, and it leaves you moved and shaken. 

Bedroom Farce, Canberra Rep, 19 Feb-7 Mar

 

Alan Ayckbourn's play has a slightly misleading title - while it's set in three bedrooms it's not really a farce (as that genre is far more about propulsive plots and frantic acting-before-thinking). Structurally this is another of Ayckbourn's experiments with form, taking place in three different bedrooms over one very long night and into the next morning as the residents mostly fail to get a good night's sleep due to the rampaging couple Trevor and Susannah. It's a look at hetro relationships as they were in the 1970s and as they still frequently are now - the minor dissatisfactions, the passive-agressions, the agressive agressions and the late night conversations that have a little too much truth in them. 

In the far left bedroom are Ernest and Delia, who's idea of an adventurous night is a nice restaurant followed by sardines-on-toast in bed. Pat Gallagher gives Ernest a nicely subdued, slightly Eyore-ish nature as he worries about the damp patch and the ettiquete of tipping, while Sally Rynveld as Delia has an iron fist in the velvet glove as she steers Ernest none-too-gently towards what she particularly wants. 

In the middle bedroom are Malcolm and Kate, just moved in together and about to have their housewarming but still playing pranks on one another. Antonia Kitzel gives Kate an anxious host energy, trying to show everyone a good time even at the possible expense of her own dignity, while Lachlan Abrahams gives Malcolm bumptious enthusiasm  covering up an easily bruised ego that becomes apparent as their conversation gets a little deeper in the second act. 

On the far right are Jan and Nick - Jan preparing for a night of being social at Malcolm and Kate's housewarming, Nick confined to bed after a recent back injury. Azerie Cromhout gives Jan an inner irritability while Rob de Fries is ragefully self-pitying as Nick fails to keep himself from exacrbating his injuries in all kinds of deligutful ways.

In between all three bedrooms are the dreaded Trevor and Susannah - a relationship on the rocks which infests each of the other three couples in various ways. James Grudnoff gives Trevor a self-centred air, blithely unaware of what he's doing to those around him, while Lara Connolly's Susannah attempts to and mostly fails to maintain her calming mantra. 

Andrew Kay's set gives us the vibes of each of the three host couples pretty easily, from the not-quite-fully-furnished mixed wallpaper of Malcolm and Kate to the modernist-futon-pad of Nick and Jan and the charmingly fusty room of Earnest and Delia. Mike Maloney manages the shifting lighting states across all three across the evening, and James McPherson sets mood well with pre-show tunes and three different ringtones for the telephones in each room. Cate Clelland dresses them all in a mix of evening-and-bedtime wear. 

Aarne Neeme stages a fairly tight production that gets a lot of laughs out of familiar characters and situations, with a little bit of truth in there as well. 

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 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.