Sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. The heartbeat of a suburb is captured in St Kilda Tales. All but two hours of movement and conversation is partly overlaid with music. Ten actors play characters looking for connection, among them friends and the disenfranchised, prostitutes and druggies. On occasion, a single conversation dominates proceedings. At other…
Call me a heathen, but I never got into the mythology of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic and beloved trilogy The Lord of the Rings. Mind you, I could say the same about Harry Potter … and then I saw that stage play, firstly in two parts and then in one, which won me over. Now, the…
Who were the big winners from The Verdi Gala Concert at Hamer Hall? We – the audience – as we were left in awe of the raw emotion on display from the moment that conductor supreme Alexander Briger lifted his baton. Orchestra Victoria was in peak form from the opening overture – urgent and powerful….
My, couldn’t we do with more peace and love in the world now, arguably more than ever? That is why Songs from the Canyon (that is Laurel Canyon) carries even greater weight in 2025. The geographic reference is to a mountainous neighbourhood in the Hollywood Hills, an oasis of tranquillity and the home of counterculture…
A young employee, Eli (Oliver Tapp), is sacked from his sales job for his intimidatory social media posts outside work to ex-girlfriend Carina. She subsequently reported him to his employer. He is angry and aggrieved and seeks her out for an explanation, but she keeps blocking him. Short of rent money and in a dark…
New York-bound Circus Oz bring daring feats of athleticism and strength, as well as laughter to Melbourne Town Hall. They enjoy clowning around to entertain an appreciative audience, but these artistes – short and tall – are seriously good at the circus arts. As someone who has been fortunate to see many circus shows, there…
With a powerful and pulsating music base, inspired by Berlin in the 1920s, Bernie Dieter’s Club Kabarett is slick and sizzling, ribald and rambunctious. It presents the finest of cabaret, circus acts and gender bending bravado, which gives the middle finger to convention with a cheeky grin. It is hip and happening and the crowd…
The concept is a game show-based pop quiz with a musical focus, overlaid with a manufactured relationship breakdown by the host, Uma Dobie. Of the former, think Britney and Bizet, Madonna and Mozart, Beyonce and Bellini. Of the latter, when calling for her assistant, being her lover, Trevor, he appears on video, brutally dumping her,…
Drag star Trevor Ashley et al slay it in a riotously funny show that derives its conceit from Baz Luhrmann’s jukebox musical Moulin Rouge! The setting has moved from the Parisian cabaret club to the Moulin Beige in Kings Cross, run by Astrid Zeneca (with legendary Carlotta in the role). Here, the star is not…
Lightscape (Friday, 20th June – Sunday, 10th August, 2025) has become an annual, must-see cavalcade of illuminated wonder at Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne. Now, for the first time, the concept has been extended to Melbourne’s outer southeast, specifically to Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne. It is titled Lightfall: Nature After Dark and is an April school…
