One of the most bizarre plays I have seen, The Amateurs is a tragicomedy from 2015 American Pulitzer Prize finalist Jordan Harrison. This is its Australian premiere. While I can’t claim to have liked it, to say it is unusual is an understatement. A troupe of mismatched mediaeval players make their way across Europe in a…
Marianne (Marta Dusseldorp) and Johan (Ben Winspear) are cosy in the comfort of their overly-scheduled, boring bourgeois lives … well that’s what they tell a magazine interviewer when being asked about their union. But what lies behind their facade and how long will it be before their imperfect love begins to dissolve? These are the…
The host of the hit TV series The Amazing Race stars in, directs and has co-written Le Ride, a documentary re-creating arguably the harshest Tour de France of them all. Phil Keoghan has always had a fascination with stories about underdogs. He found a book about the history of New Zealand cycling and in it…
Having closely watched all 75 minutes of Pear-Shaped, I remain utterly confused about what I just saw. It is a semi-autobiographical work (it contains both real and imagined experiences), written by Miranda Middleton and Ziggy Resnick, starring the latter and Luisa Scrofani. It concerns an eating disorder overlaid with Alice in Wonderland. What the? From what I…
Have you ever thought about playing mini golf with a tail? No, I am not off with the pixies. Swingers: The Art of Mini Golf, a nine-hole course above Flinders Street Station, gives you that experience. I kid you not. And, I should quickly add, it is far from easy swinging from the hips with…
For the VFL/AFL club that has finished runner up more than any other, the continued pain of losing Grand Finals and wasted seasons (when the result was far worse) was piling up. From working class roots, Tony Shaw tried his hand as basketball, but lack of height saw him turn his energies to Aussie Rules. At least,…
A prolific, iconic writer and feminist who lived life on her terms, Miles Franklin (14th October, 1879 – 19th September, 1954) is best known for her auspicious debut, My Brilliant Career. Her legacy lives on through her published works and with the announcement of the annual Miles Franklin Literary Award to a novel of literary…
Based on the 2013 bestseller of the same name, Wonder tells the inspiring and heartwarming story of 10-year-old August Pullman. Born with facial deformities, Auggie (Jacob Tremblay) becomes the most unlikely of heroes when he enters the fifth grade at his local school. His medical issues had prevented him from going to a mainstream school before…
Secrets of the past hang over Yuval Adler’s drama, The Secrets We Keep. Maja (Noomi Rapace) suffers from her experiences as a Romanian gypsy during World War II. To this point she’s kept the dark secret to herself. She’s forged a new life with her husband, Lewis (Chris Messina) – a GP – and young…
You would be hard pressed to find a more accomplished musical theatre performer on the big stage than Caroline O’Connor. In short, she is a league of her own. She sizzles. She is pure dynamite, the best of the best of the best. In almost every scene of Funny Girl, she struts, pouts and jiggles…
