“Did that just happen?” a mischievous Michael Banks (Fraser Goodreid) wonders to sister Jane (Dorothea Seierup) after their first outing to the park with Mary Poppins sees park statutes come to life. There are lots of similar moments in Disney and Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of Mary Poppins. Cheeky young Michael has some of the…
Interactive theatre can be stimulating. In the case of Day After Terrible Day, while creative, I found it totally perplexing. Upon arrival, patrons are divided into groups and led to the double doors of what turns out to be an unfinished mansion. Once ushered inside, perched on a 10-rung ladder at the back of the theatre…
Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterful work The Phantom of the Opera sizzles. Everything about the production works a treat. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music, a cavalcade of riches, still stirs the soul 36 years after the musical debuted in London. In this case, plaudits to Orchestra Victoria for bringing it to life, with Anthony…
The speed of the Earth as it moves in orbit around the sun is 67,000 miles an hour, even though we go through our daily lives entirely unaware of our constant motion. An original member of the 60’s band, The Doughboys, Richard X. Heyman follows up last year’s power-pop leaning Copious Notes, with 15 fresh…
Set in New York City in 1980, Armageddon Time is a coming-of-age story highlighting African-American and Jewish experiences. And it’s the vehicle to propel two bright young actors onto the world stage. Fourteen year-old Banks Repeta plays sixth-grader Paul Graff, a boy from a middle class Jewish family. Jaylin Webb, 16, portrays Johnny Davis, a…
Prolific historian Dan Jones has turned his deep knowledge to provide the basis of a fictional account of the start of the hundred years war in Essex Dogs. The book is the first of a planned trilogy about a group of scrappy fighters caught up in the wars between the British and the French, a…
Our selection of the best new music across a range of genres from the week ending 28 October 2022. In the spring of 2020, singer-songwriter Aoife Nessa Frances packed up her things in Dublin and moved to rural County Clare on the west coast of Ireland. It was there, amidst the stillness, that she began…
– Mistletoe Ranch – Only in cinemas from 17 November 2022 We have 10 double in-season passes thanks to Athabasca Film. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE Upon learning her hometown’s holiday celebrations have been put on hold, international photographer Aimée Tremblay returns to the town of Snowy Oak to restore the…
A proud, potent and poignant piece of artistry that combines dance, song, monologue and athleticism with projections is the highlight of DanceX Part III. I speak of Gudirr Gudirr by Marrugeku, which contains truth-telling about the history of indigenous Australians from the Kimberley region of Western Australia. To say what is acted out is not pretty is…
There’s no mistaking where The Caretaker is located. As the lights dim, the powerful throng of the bells of Big Ben ring 12 times. Mick, a builder with own van sits solemnly on a single bed in a shabby boarding house in the late 1950s. He is surrounded by meagre furnishings, junk knick-knacks, a gas…
