Prepare to be mesmerised. Cirque du Soleil continues to lift the bar with its latest show – its 38th original production – LUZIA. The name LUZIA is a combination of the Spanish words for light and rain. Mind you, there is no raining on this parade of the extraordinary. LUZIA, the show, marks the first time in Cirque…
A superb production breathes new life into the multi award-winning story of vice that is Bob Fosse’s Chicago. We’re in the roaring Twenties. Married to the dim-witted Amos, chorus girl Roxie Hart is enraged when Fred Casely breaks off an affair and shoots him dead. She tries to pin the murder on her hapless husband, although that backfires. Sent…
It is 1999 and the clock is ticking down to the opening of a new production for a community theatre company. The pompous, misogynistic director fawns over the only paid member of the troupe, the leading man … and derides everyone else. The leading lady longs for a different role. An understudy who sees the good in everyone…
The Australian Ballet’s glorious production of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a fitting tribute to the splendid State Theatre before it undergoes a three-year refurbishment. It is a colourful, highly creative, whimsical work – a sensory sensation. The winner of the 2018 Helpmann Award for Best Ballet, Christopher Wheeldon choreographs the translation of Lewis Carroll’s beloved book. The…
The prequel to The Wizard of Oz is back to delight anew and delight it most certainly does in a dazzling display at Melbourne’s finest theatre – the grand Regent. This is top shelf entertainment in every way. I speak of the talent, the choreography, the staging, the lighting and the sound. We are in the…
Talent. Who has it and who doesn’t? It is a word readily bandied about, but it is fair to say that talent gets down to the eye (and ear) of the beholder. That is the subject at the centre of this absurdist, slapstick musical, first performed Off-Broadway in 1992. It is a rollicking spoof of classic shows…
A rich array of talent is on display, as love and loss take centre stage in Jonathan Larson’s passion filled musical Rent. Based on Puccini’s opera La boheme, written in 1895 it tells the story of a year in the life of Bohemian friends living in New York City in the late 1980s. In the group…
Fifty years on, it remains just as wacky, bold, sexy, energetic and as much fun as when Tim Curry first took to the London stage in 1973. Rocky Horror Show is, of course, a loving tribute to the science fiction and B-grade horror movies of the late 1940s through to the early 1970s. It’s the story of…
Exactly what is the best of all possible worlds? You may well ask that question before, during and after watching the delicious Broadway operetta Candide. The focus is on the hapless titular character (Lyndon Watts), who is schooled by the ever-optimistic Doctor Pangloss (Eddie Perfect). Perfect, who doubles as the philosopher Voltaire, narrates the musical mayhem that ensues…
Imagine living your life in an endless time loop and going crazy in the process. In essence, that is what Groundhog Day: The Musical is all about. It is based on the 1993 hit movie starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell, directed by Harold Ramis. Phil Connors is an egotistical Pittsburgh TV weather presenter. He is dreading…
