The expression “many hands make light work” immediately springs to mind when describing the specially created “night trail” through the Royal Botanic Gardens. An enormous amount of work has clearly gone into preparing the spectacular light and sound show known as Lightscape in the finely manicured surrounds. I wandered the meandering path, which spans 1.8 kilometres, stopping…
Rhonda Burchmore sizzles in Cabaret De Paris. With those golden tonsils of hers, she sings up a storm. It is great to see and hear her in such fine form. She looks like she hasn’t aged at all. How does she do it? She’s cheeky, cheery, sexy and seductive. It is her showcase and she delivers in spades,…
Pre-show music and mingling sets the tone of The Neighbourhood, as the show’s performers (Cieavash Arean, Nima Doostkhah, Aurora Liddle-Christie, Dr Matt Hsu, Naavi Karan, Anisa Nandula and Amer Thabet) converse with the audience to prompt conversation around consideration of our neighbourhoods. Clearly, the concept of home is a complicated and abstract one and it…
I’m theatre traditionalist at heart; I don’t like puppets, audience participation…. or magic. So needless to say, The Illusionists: Direct from Broadway is my first (somewhat reluctant) show of its sort. And what a spectacular show I must admit it is. From the moment it begins with The Trickster (Paul Dabek) cheekily pitting two young…
Venom: The Last Dance is the third instalment of the Venom trilogy. It takes place a year after investigative journalist turned vigilante Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) was “invaded” by a symbiote (an extraterrestrial parasite) to become Venom. Although Eddie’s part of the character is trying to keep a lid on Venom’s antics, the symbiote continues…
At first glance, Greenwood appears to be yet another environmental dystopia. The novel opens with a group of environmental tourists in 2038 being shown some of the last of the world’s great trees on an island off the west coast of Canada. And whilst there is a deep strain of environmentalism in Greenwood, it is…
With a band like The Charlatans, where they have overcome overwhelming odds while continuing to record music after 28 years, the fact that they are still at it is something worthy of acknowledgement. Coming up in the Manchester music scene in the wake of the success of the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays, The…
Based on the 2009 short story collection Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It written by Maile Meloy, Certain Women is structured around three stories that briefly intersect. They are all set in the small town of Livingston, Montana. The three stories follow the emotional turmoil, the hopes and disappointments, and loneliness experienced…
Titus is a story of revenge. It is an exploration of the raw, primal instinct for revenge. And what sweet, sweet revenge it turned out to be. Titus Andronicus, as performed by the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble is one of the most engaging pieces of theatre, let alone Shakespeare I have seen for quite some time….
Backtrack is an atmospheric Aussie psychological thriller with supernatural undertones that borrows elements from the superior The Sixth Sense and Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, among others. The film explores themes of grief, redemption, loss, forgiveness, and confronting the ghosts of the past. Troubled psychologist Peter Bower (played by Oscar winner Adrien Brody, from The…
