Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is so much riotous fun – a zany hoot. The 36-year wait for the sequel to the beloved Beetlejuice has well and truly been worth it. Just seeing Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara “doing their thing” again is joyful. I relished the addition of Jenna Ortega as the third-generation member of…
Melbourne has hosted the English-language debut of Madiba The Musical, after the show had previously opened in France, north Africa and the West Indies.It chronicles Nelson Mandela’s triumph-against-the-odds story. A forbidden love affair between a black man and a white woman provides a fictional parallel tale. The musical skips through much of Mandela’s historical backstory…
In Greek mythology, Clytemnestra was the twin sister of the woman said to be the most beautiful in the world, Helen of Troy. Their mother was Leda. Cygnets is a new take on sibling rivalry – the pain, the pleasure, the subterfuge. It shows the two girls had different experiences with their mother. It reveals jealousy and cruelty. An…
Having reformed with their original line-up back in 2013, Veruca Salt has returned with their new LP, Ghost Notes. This is the first record featuring Louise Post and Nina Gordon, since 1997’s Eight Arms to Hold You. For all review purposes, this record could be and probably should receive a shrug of the shoulders but…
If you like your movies slow cooked, then The Souvenir may be one to consider. Not a lot happens and even when it does it takes its sweet time to get there. It took me the best part of a half hour or more to get into the picture. The Souvenir is set in the…
There’s no honour among thieves in the heist movie King of Thieves. A group of senior citizens plan and execute the perfect robbery. But then they get greedy and distrustful of one another. Most of them are old and infirm men who should know better, but the lure of riches is overwhelming. They’re led by…
Damon Galgut’s ninth novel The Promise won the 2021 Booker Prize. Not having read all of the shortlisted novels it is hard to determine whether it was the best of the five. But there is no doubt that The Promise is a towering yet often intimate novel combining family drama and incisive character observation set…
Thomas D Lee’s debut Perilous Times is a strange amalgam of post-apocalyptic eco-thriller and classic fantasy liberally laced with plenty of satire. It is set in a Britain ravaged by climate change, features rapacious corporations, plucky revolutionaries and climate refugees. But it also centres around the Arthurian legends and the knights of the Round Table….
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…
It’s taken the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble until its 20th birthday year to finally mount a full production of arguably Shakespeare’s best-known play – Romeo & Juliet – and the outcome is most definitely worth the wait. Some would say that it’s hard to put a new twist on the oft-performed play, however the window dressing…
