A remarkable piece of work, Loving Vincent is the world’s first fully painted feature film. Written and directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, the movie brings to life the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, telling his astonishing story. Every frame of the picture, some 65,000, is an oil painting. The finished work has been hand-painted…
4 Minutes 12 Seconds is a British play, by James Fritz, written in 2013. This is the story of a mother, Di (Danielle King), with a husband, David (Jeremy Waters) and their son, Jack – who we never meet. The son has had a Facebook post that has gone viral. The content is not pleasant,…
A rich, harrowing and deeply evocative story has been superbly translated into captivating musical theatre in this Australasian premiere production of The Color Purple – The Musical. It charts the life of Celie Johnson (played by Jayme-Lee Hanekom – Disney’s The Lion King), a battered and downtrodden African-American woman from when she was a 14-year-old…
Some movies are good. Some movies are bad. And some are just so bonkers, they defy rational assessment. Fatman is one of those. Co-directors and writers Eshom and Ian Helms have crafted a stunning piece of whack-battery that seems more like a fever dream than an actual plot. Not that there’s anything wrong with zany…
A man writes a 17,000 page report. Sound good? Maybe that potted summary doesn’t really sell it; but Scott Z. Burns’ docu-fiction about US torture during the euphemistically-named “war on terror” is a fascinating if slow-moving lesson on the dangers of unbounded power. Burns is possibly better-known as a writer, particularly for his collaborations with…
Magic, mayhem and mirth combine for a delightful family offering in Clifford The Big Red Dog. Emily (Darby Camp) is a smart 12-year-old who lives with her paralegal single British mother Maggie (Sienna Guillory) in a small New York apartment. They have just moved there from upstate and Emily is friendless. More than that, she…
A couple of bumbling, small time crims luck out in the farcical comedy The Wrong Horse. I speak of best mates Noddy (Darren Mort) and Big Ears (Dom Phelan). Big Ears – who has a “wind” issue – is forever sponging off Noddy … dropping in at his place all hours of the day and night, drinking…
“I wish I could be more like one of my favourites Stanley Kubrick, able to not speak to anybody about my movie but let the movies speak for themselves,” confesses prolific Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino. Better known for the gorgeous 2009 drama I Am Love, Guadagnino was in town to introduce his latest film A…
It was fun, fun, fun, all class and a spirit reviving couple of hours in the Lyric at the Anything Goes opening night – and we got a lot more than a glimpse of stocking, we got a sparkling, energy packed marvel of a show, with leggy showgirls, great comedy, super singing and character creation…
Re-tellings of Greek mythology are all the rage at the moment. Some recent forays back into this world include Madeline Miller’s Circe, Colm Tobin’s House of Names, Mark Haddon’s The Porpoise and Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls. The Miller and Barker books, in particular, seek to put a more feminist, female-centric spin on…
