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 after a long night of Shakesperean Tragedy I was as eager to watch something with a flynig car and the moment when the car flies is kinda 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 "Ths 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