The massive impact of the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983 – 2009) on one family is brought into sharp focus in the incendiary play The Jungle and the Sea. It is a moving follow up to S. Shakthidharan and Eamon Flack’s highly acclaimed Counting and Cracking, which played at Union Theatre in June 2024. It…
Just what are people capable of? Can we exist in harmony? Is symbiosis even possible? Those questions are explored in the darkly comedic, at times disturbing, strikingly original theatrical work Multiple Bad Things. The actors are physically and mentally challenged, and diverse. They are in a warehouse trying to erect the skeleton of a house (I admire Anna…
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’…
A largely predictable romantic drama, Love Sarah centres around three generations of women who go into business together in a culturally diverse area of London’s Notting Hill. The Sarah of the title (Candice Brown) and Isabella (Shelley Conn) are best friends who were about to open a sweet-focused bakery together, but then tragedy struck. Sarah,…
A troubling mind-puzzle in English, French (often without translation) and a touch of German, Polygraph takes concentration to follow. I did finally make sense of it, I’m pleased to say, near the end. For much of the play the disparate elements appear like a jigsaw, where try as you do, you simply cannot connect the…
Here is a little gift for those who can’t calm their minds long enough right now to dig into long haul television and would rather be entertained with brief screen chunks of intrigue and laughs. You will add a little to your general true crime knowledge bank too as you soak in the casual docuseries…
I have been in The Gaslight Anthem’s corner since the beginning, so the last few records from the band have been somewhat tough to absorb as the group battles the desire to be popular with still trying to remain hip. From the group that gave us all the angst on their SideOneDummy albums they have…
In The Hate U Give, 16 year-old Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg) is caught between two worlds. She lives with her African-American family in the ironically named Garden Heights, an impoverished black neighbourhood in Georgia; but she attends Wilmington Prep, a prestigious primarily white school in a more affluent neighbourhood. At school, Starr carefully protects her…
Sexuality (some might call it perversion) appears to be a constant theme in young playwright Thomas Ian Doyle’s work, which is inevitably confronting. Fortunately, he has a ready outlet for it in the form of the theatre he and director Gabrielle Savrone operate, namely The Owl and Cat. Wash Room is set entirely in a…
Vin Diesel leads a cast of renegades to try to save the world from destruction in xXx: Return of Xander Cage. Yes, I know it is a well-worn plot, but I found this sequel surprisingly engaging and entertaining for the first half, even though I had no idea who was fighting whom and which sides…
