A highly-charged thriller, Everybody Knows is intoxicating cinema. It’s the work of brilliant Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi who has woven some of the finest stories in recent years including The Salesman, The Past and A Separation. In Everybody Knows, a vital and beautiful girl disappears. Suddenly family threads start to unravel as a shadow of…
Another scintillating performance from Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) is one of the distinguishing features of The Edge of Seventeen, a first rate coming-of-age story that also features Woody Harrelson in a memorable role. Growing up is the great equaliser. No matter your family situation, walk of life, or specific personal experience, anyone who has gone…
A supernatural force is present in the house Rebekah (Lucy Liu), her husband Chris (Chris Sullivan) and their teenage children Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Callina Liang) move into. Tyler is an elite swimmer and it is at his mother’s insistence to maximise his future prospects that they purchase the home. Tyler is Rebekah’s favourite…
David Campbell was born to play Bobby Darin, such is his command of the character and vocals in Dream Lover. He fits seamlessly into the highly demanding role, which requires a great deal of energy and non-stop movement. While the musical contains many numbers I was familiar with, it matters not. In Campbell’s hands –…
9 to 5: The Musical is energetic, sassy and colourful. What isn’t lost in this bright and breezy production though is the underlying point of it all. To see it played out makes one wince, just as it should. Franklin Hart Jnr (Eddie Perfect) is the misogynistic and pompous CEO of Consolidated Industries. He rides rough shod…
Odd Man Out is a new Australian play, by David Williamson. The play explores a relationship between Ryan (Justin Stewart Cotta), a ‘numbers’ genius employed and paid well by a Big Bank for his skills, who suffers from an undiagnosed case of Aspergers’ Syndrome and Alice (Lisa Gormley) a 38 year old physical therapist counting…
Shake & Stir’s adaption of Mary Shelly’s classic gothic horror novel Frankenstein is thrilling in both pace and spectacle. From its beginning, the company leans into the scale and theatrical potential of the epic story of young scientist Victor Frankenstein’s creation of a sentient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. The colossal storytelling starts aboard…
Forty years on, the winner of 11 Tony Awards remains so much rambunctious fun. This all-new Australian production stars five-time Helpmann Award winner Paul Capsis in the lead role of Albin. By his side is renowned singer and actor Michael Cormick (Beauty and The Beast, The Phantom of The Opera) as husband Georges. Georges and the flamboyant,…
Ber Carroll explores contemporary issues such as relationship breakdowns, child custody, belonging, identity and abandonment in her latest novel, Once Lost. It’s the first time I’ve read one of Carroll’s books, and I was impressed by her ability to give authentic voice to the everyday conflicts women face in modern life. Once Lost is a…
Immersive and interactive theatre excites me. It always has. We don’t see enough of it in Australia. That is why I entered The Austral in Collingwood (a former theatre, cinema and roller-skating rink that dates back to 1921) with a heightened sense of anticipation. Forty-three rooms, eight characters, with us – the audience – free to go where…
