Can we escape a tortured past? That question is at the heart of the new drama Lyceum Highway, written by KV Adams and debuting at Meat Market Stables. The story starts with Maggie (Laura Iris Hill) wrapping herself in a brightly coloured crocheted blanket, admitting that she needs help. A blackness is overwhelming and consuming…
Sensory deprivation, in particular that of sight, results in acuity of sound in the four-part immersive experience that is Darkfield. The venue is four purpose-fitted white shipping containers at 138 Little Bourke Street – a vacant lot transformed – each with the name of the show on the outside. I speak of Séance and Flight, both of…
An octoroon is a person who has one-eighth black heritage. This now-politically-incorrect titular understanding is at the centre of Queensland Theatre’s An Octoroon we are told in a meta-theatre pre-emptive explanation of the Act Four function in melodrama. The clarification is not necessary, but appreciated given all that is going in American writer Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’…
The Cornish contingent from Fisherman’s Friends (2019) are back to appreciate sea shanties anew in Fisherman’s Friends: One and All. The earlier film was about many local mates who were unexpectedly signed to an international record label and recorded a top 10 hit with their debut album. In the sequel Jim (James Purefoy) once again…
A turgid, moody snore fest is in store for those who venture out to see Angelina Jolie’s second film as a writer and third as director (fourth if you count the documentary A Place in Time). She also happens to star in it (and produces it) alongside her husband Brad Pitt, but even two actors…
Imagine being adopted at birth, not in your home country, but abroad, where the cultural difference is significant, and never feeling like you totally fit in. Imagine also that the search for your birth parents is far from easy and when you do finally make contact it is hardly the warm embrace you anticipated it…
The third and final installment in the Raymond Electromatic series, I Only Killed Him Once sees robot detective – turned gun for hire – in the fight of his “life”. “Life” requires a bit of wiggle room here as Raymond Electromatic is a robotic detective / hitman with a 24 hour long memory, and a…
A driven, high achieving woman melts down when two relationships go awry in Drive. Writer Rebecca Meston was inspired by the true story of former NASA astronaut Lisa Nowak. You might remember Nowak as the person who drove non-stop for 14 hours to confront her ex-lover’s new partner. Wearing a disguise, she also a knife,…
With technology continuing to advance at a rapid rate, Now deals with a new take on reality post COVID-19. A middle-aged mother, X, played by Helene Tardif, is environmentally responsible, aware of her carbon footprint and climate change. Her husband, Y (Marc Opitz), who has spent 25 years in advertising, is frustrated that he can’t…
A tough and resolute, factually-based crime drama, The Infiltrator is centred on the actions of the drug cartels that infiltrated the US in the 1980s. The film, directed by Brad Furman and written by Ellen Brown Furman, comes from an autobiography of the same name by Robert Mazur. Mazur (played by Bryan Cranston), a US…
