I’m slowly acquainting myself with Angela Carter’s writing, and when I saw The Magic Toyshop in a Sydney bookshop, I had to have it. This is the blurb: One night Melanie walks through the garden in her mother’s wedding dress. The next morning her world is shattered. Forced to leave the comfortable home of her…
The Little Dog Laughed, by American writer, Douglas Carter Beane, has had a previous outing at the Ensemble Theatre in 2009. The play had been nominated in 2006 for a Tony Award, in New York, and, I, based on the Ensemble production that I saw, could not understand why. It appeared to be one of…
A light, lively and joyous family friendly production of Mozart’s final opera before his passing, The Magic Flute is a cavalcade of fun and treachery. For me, four characters turned the beloved opera into something special. Foremost among them was Andrew Moran’s quintessential, knockabout Aussie representation of the bird catcher, Papageno. From the moment he…
Not to be confused with Barry Levinson’s 1994 erotic thriller of the same name, the provocative and intimate drama Disclosure looks at the darker side of suburban life in contemporary Australia. Two sets of parents gather together to discuss an incident involving their children, but things turn ugly as the impromptu meeting progresses. Natasha Bowman,…
It is October 1915. Private James Martin (Oliver Tapp) is lying in bed on the hospital ship the Glenart Castle coughing his lungs out. Memories of his family back home in Australia come flooding back. This is the story of a boy who, after blackmailing his parents, enlisted in the Army, having falsified his age….
Paddington (the voice of Ben Whishaw) gets back to his roots in a rollicking adventure with the Brown family in Paddington in Peru. The intelligent bear remains living comfortably with the clan, although there is now little connection between the parents and their two children. Judy (Madeleine Harris) is applying for university entrance and mum…
Being a teenager … trying to make your way in the world can be challenging and scary. So it is for this group of seven Year 12 students at a high achieving Stockport (a town near Manchester, where playwright Simon Stephens grew up) grammar school, who are about to sit their end of year exams. A…
Now in her mid 80s, Caryl Churchill is regarded as one of the world’s greatest living playwrights. Her work is innovative … enigmatic, challenging and provocative, inevitably open to interpretation. Escaped Alone and What If If Only is the world-first pairing of two separate short plays by the acclaimed Brit. The former, which runs for 45 minutes,…
– Fences – Only in cinemas from 9 February 2017 We have 10 double in-season passes thanks to Paramount Pictures Australia. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE FENCES is the story of Troy Maxson, a mid-century Pittsburgh sanitation worker who once dreamed of a baseball career, but was too old when the…
– Last Flag Flying – Only in cinemas from 25 April 2018 We have 10 double in-season passes thanks to Transmission Films. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE One of the most acclaimed American filmmakers of his generation, Richard Linklater (Boyhood, Before Sunrise), teams up with an exceptional ensemble cast to deliver…
