What a stunning song cycle! It premiered off the West End in 2008 and off Broadway the following year and first appeared in Australia in 2012. The work of American composer and lyricist Adam Gwon, it concerns two relationships in New York City. Warren (Joel Granger) is an artist who is house sitting another artist’s…
Spirited and playful, with a series of dazzling and often surprising acts, Cirque du Soleil’s Corteo looks back on the life of a clown named Mauro. He imagines it is his funeral and he is being attended by angels. As other characters drift in and out, it is not a wake, but a celebration –…
The world has gone crazy. How often did you hear those words or similar utterances during COVID-19? It is May 2020 and the preposterous meets the absurd in the dark Western comedy Eddington, as conspiracy theories abound. The starting point is decidedly opposing views from the sheriff of seven years in a small town in…
The mysterious and the unnatural collide with devastating consequences in the psychological body horror Together. Tim (Dave Franco) is 35 – a largely out of work musician who doesn’t drive. Millie (Alison Brie), a teacher is the steady one in their relationship. They have been together for almost a decade and although they haven’t always…
Can you truly escape your past? That is the question at the heart of When Fall is Coming. Retired grandmother Michelle Giraud (Helen Vincent) used to live in an apartment in Paris, but now enjoys a quiet life in a picturesque French village. There, she tends to her overgrown garden and has a close friendship…
Everything old is new again. That popular expression could apply to the sequel to Disney’s Freaky Friday, which again features Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan and Mark Harmon. The conceit of the original, 22 years ago, was that Tess Coleman (Curtis) and her daughter, Anna (Lohan), are at loggerheads. And then, after a freak accident,…
Light-hearted and fun, Footloose: The Musical is centred around change in conservative America in the 1980s. Navigating it, especially when it is forced upon you, can be mighty difficult, especially when it leaves you feeling like a fish out of water. That is the situation for the central figure in the story, Ren McCormack. About…
A thriller centred around a fixer who negotiates deals between corrupt corporations and whistleblowers, Relay becomes more tightly wound as it reaches its climax. Tom (Riz Ahmed) is that middleman or fixer I speak off. An IT whiz, he is a problem solver for those who can’t see any other way out. He makes money…
A murderous plan, oh most foul. That is at the heart of Dial M for Murder, written by Frederick Knott in 1952 and popularised by Alfred Hitchcock’s suspenseful movie two years later. TV crime writer Max Halliday (Leon Walshe) visits Margot Wendice (Bridget Bourke) in her London apartment a year after the pair had a…
What a weapon invective is in Bloomshed’s fun-filled, hilarious take on Pride and Prejudice. The basic ingredients are there, but the twists are delicious and enormously satisfying in what is a social satire dressed as a period drama. For starters, Mr Bennet is a withering plant (yes, a potted monstera, in fact) that Mrs Bennet…
