An intelligent, insightful and emotion-charged work from Melbourne writer and performer Helen Yotis Patterson awaits those who venture to see this world premiere production. Inspired by untold true stories of love, sacrifice and courage, Taxithi opens the door to the Greek migrant experience to Australia in the 1950s and ‘60s. Ten tales are delivered by…
Good Muslim Boy is a tale of procrastination, bureaucratic somnambulance and frustration, but it’s brilliantly told at a breakneck pace. It’s fast, funny and powerful and had me fretting for the hero and so much relating to his predicament of being stuck in a foreign place where no one really cared about your predicament. It…
In these days of endless sequels, prequels, re-boots and re-imaginings, it often feels odd to encounter something out of left field. But you can always trust French cinema to deliver something out of the ordinary – and director Bertrand Bonello delivers just that with The Beast. Bonello and his screenwriting partners Guillaume Bréaud and Benjamin…
Two and a half hours of high-octane rock ‘n roll, an ode to Freddie Mercury and Queen, await those who venture in to Melbourne’s Regent Theatre to see the off-the-wall musical comedy We Will Rock You. Written and updated as well as directed by Ben Elton, it is oh so silly, but heaps and heaps…
Lovers of comedy genre mashups will already be very aware of the work of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and open to Truth Seekers. They came on to the scene with the series, Spaced, directed by Edgar Wright, in the early 2000s which mixed comedy with a range of science fiction and fantasy standards. The…
Jock Serong has not done the same thing twice… until now. And even then, not really. The Burning Island is a sequel to Serong’s 2018 historical novel Preservation. Preservation drew on the true story of an epic land journey up the Australian coast in the very early days of the colony while also exploring the…
A suspenseful thriller that stretches credibility, Fall benefits from some spectacular cinematography. So see it on the biggest screen you can. Married couple Dan (Mason Gooding) and Becky Connor (Grace Caroline Currey) are into each other and big mountain rock climbing. They share that passion with Becky’s best friend, Shiloh Hunter (Virginia Gardner). But then…
Honour is at stake in Verdi’s powerful opera Ernani, which features a surfeit of rich, rounded and redolent performances. The music is superb, rousing from the magnificent opening chorus number (with many more to follow), not to overlook a series of emotional arias. The first half, in particular, I found strikingly impactful. The action takes place…
The first known reference to vampires appeared in written form in Old Russian in AD 1047, soon after Orthodox Christianity moved into Eastern Europe. According to Britannica, the first prose vampire story published in English is believed to be John Polidori’s “The Vampyre” (1819). That was about a mysterious aristocrat named Lord Ruthven who seduces young women, only to…
Colour, movement, quirky characters and an up-tempo soundtrack feature in the animated musical adventure Sing 2. A troupe of performing animals led by impresario Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) – a koala – is playing sold-out shows in a small town. In the audience one night is canine talent scout Suki Lane (Chelsea Peretti), who is…
