A cleverly conceived and executed song cycle about the vicissitudes of life, Songs of the Northern River features six talented women who weave 12 graphic melodic tales. Some are harrowing, others amusing. They deal with pain, cruelty, kindness and achievement. Book, music and lyrics are by Alex J. Ridefelt. First up, a long-term worker has…
Harold is in for a few very bad days – and things aren’t likely to get better any time soon. Nash Edgerton directs his brother Joel in in Gringo. This over-the-top comedic crime caper has more twists and turns than a rollercoaster. Mild-mannered pharmaceutical company executive Harold Soyinka (David Oyelowo) has never questioned his boss’s…
Soaring vocals and a bravura performance by Soprano Helena Dix are among the many highlights of Lucrezia Borgia, in which subterfuge and skulduggery abound. The melodramatic opera by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti hasn’t been performed in Melbourne for more than 30 years. Director Gary Abrahams has chosen to set the story in a world of power,…
For a while now, Glen Powell has largely traded on his (very) good looks. His recent cinema outing Anyone But You, proved a box office hit. But the actor spreads his wings somewhat as an undercover agent in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man. I say “somewhat” because he still can’t entirely escape his genetic gifts in…
The Nightingale and The Rose is a Gothic fable. It was first published in 1888 as part of Oscar Wilde’s anthology titled The Happy Prince and Other Stories. It explores the beauty of love and art from the perspective of an effervescent nightingale. The bird hears the longing cries of a young student desperate to…
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…
The Sitting Duck (La Syndicaliste) is a political thriller based in fact. Director Jean-Paul Salome and co-screenwriter Fadette Drouard craft their story around a trade union official and whistleblower who wasn’t believed after a violent personal attack. The central figure is Maureen Kearney (Isabelle Huppert). In 2012, she worked for a Areva, a French multinational…
Featuring a live band and ten sexy performers, A Very Naughty Christmas is the holiday comedy event you didn’t know you had to experience. With festive classics as you’ve never heard them before, this show is bound to get you into the holiday spirit. And back, as it is, for its fifth helping, it really…
Australia’s bushranger history is rich material for filmmakers. Ned Kelly’s rebellious spirit is embedded in our national psyche and he still hogs much of the limelight from that period. There have been two major films exploring Kelly’s life, and we’ve had a number of other films about famous bushrangers and that whole period of history,…
Daniel Defoe (born Daniel Foe) may well have been the first English novelist. At least that is the contention in the play Defoe’s Plague, which starts with a man in a thin, eerie, long nosed mask performing an incense cleansing. The head covering looks like that worn by doctors in bygone days and intended to protect them…
