Crowd involvement is the name of the game for the good-natured banter of Perth-based comedian Emo (Emmanuel Majok), whose show is titled Black Santa. To that effect, he enters the room with a broad smile and a red and white Santa hat. Throughout his 40-minute set, the 33-year-old plays on his colour, flipping it one way…
The Norwegian comedy Diana’s Wedding really puts family values to the test. This small film offers some hard truths, wrapped in that peculiarly Scandinavian sense of humour. Director Charlotte Blom doubles as the screenwriter. She brings a sharply observational style to what is essentially a kitchen-sink dramedy, but doesn’t seek to inject any great flair…
Indigenous Australia’s fight for justice and equality is given superhero treatment in Blackie Blackie Brown. We may well be looking at the stage equivalent of the movies Deadpool or Kick-Ass. Exaggerated theatrics are liberally supplemented by evocative graphics, animation, mock television news reports, and mood lighting. The staging is most effective. A series of joined…
They’re living in a totalitarian State, where Big Brother is everywhere. There’s a 6pm curfew that must be met. Drones hover overhead, tanks roam the streets and “peacekeepers” ensure the law is obeyed. But there is a great deal of discontent and anger at being “caged”. One 16-year-old, Immy Marcus (Tsungirai Wachenuka), who feels the pain of her mother,…
The edgy, psychedelic 60s-themed drama, Aquarius is returning for its second season on the Presto on-demand service from 17 June. The show will kick off with a special three-episode premiere ahead of its weekly schedule. Episodes one to three will stream express from the U.S. on Friday, 17 June. Following the initial three episode drop,…
Boise, Idaho. Storm clouds have rolled in, causing all flights to be cancelled. Ben (Idris Elba) is a neurosurgeon trying to get a flight to Denver. He needs to catch a connecting flight to New York, where he’s scheduled to perform life-saving surgery on a ten-year old boy. Alex (Kate Winslet) is a photojournalist who…
I think it was Billy Connolly, most likely during one of his numerous appearances on Parky, who I once heard use the phrase ‘shortbread tin view of Scotland’. In essence, the views of Scotland on shortbread tins were idealised and far from the reality of current day Scotland. Even today, if you find an image…
Two, original, 35-minute works broken by a 20-minute interval, the first involves 22 dancers aged 10 to 17 (the youth artists) and the second 15 adults. Youngsters in various formations – all dressed in parallel versions of white and black – run, leap, tumble and turn in Happily Ever After. A series of vignettes, the scenes…
Agatha Christie is the world’s best-selling author. Some 2 billion copies of her crime and mystery novels have been sold. She wrote 66 novels; 33 of which feature her famous creation, the arrogant but brilliant Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot. Many of her books have been filmed to varying degrees of success, although apparently Christie herself…
Having seen The Forgotten Songbook, I am left wondering why Wilbur Weissman isn’t talked about in the same breath as the great composers of Broadway’s Golden Age. I speak of the likes of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and Leonard Bernstein, to name but a few. I was captivated by the music I…
