With a fine, strong singing voice and a great sense of humour, to indefatigable 28-year-old Stephen Valeri opening those pipes is akin to breathing. He’s wanted to do it for as long as he can remember. And do it he does at breakneck speed in Your Diva Needs You. This is a 90-minute ode to the divas…
Critically acclaimed for good reason, this is a play that holds greatest appeal to theatre purists. Featuring four monologues and a running time that is a shade over two hours without interval, it is a drama that arrives at The Sumner after an award-winning season at the Belvoir in Sydney. It focuses on the life…
In the conversation around the greatest living movie director, Steven Spielberg is very much in the mix. From his feature debut with Duel, through his trademark films like E.T. and the Indiana Jones series, to his serious works in Schindler’s List and Lincoln, few directors can match his filmography. Now he takes his audience back…
You Cannot Kill David Arquette is the redemptive tale of washed-up Hollywood actor David Arquette and his attempt to reverse the mistakes of his past. In 2002, Arquette decided to cross-promote his comedy film Ready to Rumble about wrestling fans, by entering into the wrestling ring himself. However, the gimmick snowballed into Arquette actually winning…
The atmosphere of the era is set the moment one enters The Chapel at Chapel Off Chapel, which has been transformed into a den of iniquity. The band is playing and the mood is raucous and raunchy, with gamblers, showgirls and puritans mixing freely with the audience. Particular attention is paid to those seated at the two…
Grounded, by George Brant, performed by Kate Cole at the Reginald Theatre, SHOULD NOT BE MISSED. An exhilarated female Top Gun flies her own plane, her ‘Tiger”, striking down the enemy, begins a relationship with an ordinary but love-smitten man, becomes pregnant, is required to stop flying, has a girl child, Sam, and later returns…
They don’t make many movies about lesbian nuns these days. Thankfully provocative Dutch auteur Paul Verhoeven is here to fill in this cinematic void. Verhoeven’s films have often courted controversy – from the sexy police thriller Basic Instinct through to the lurid and trashy Showgirls. Verhoeven has always been something of a subversive and provocative…
Australian actress, director and former head of the Queensland Theatre Company and the Sydney Theatre Company, Robyn Nevin, AO, is the type of figure who deserves applause upon her every stage entrance. That is what deservedly happens at the start of Christopher Hampton’s powerful play A German Life. Nevin plays Brunhilde Pomsel and shares the…
Nearly five decades ago, it was a close encounter with a UFO that resonated with audiences (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 1977). Five years on, it was all about helping a friendly alien return home (ET: the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982). Next, an alien invasion threatened the future of humanity (War of the Worlds, 2005). And…
