Writer and director Alex Garland (Ex Machina) is a master filmmaker who steps it up a notch with the blockbuster Civil War. In the film, America is at war with itself. The President (Nick Offerman) has declared he is on the verge of victory, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Looking to take…
A corpse dressed to the nines being carted around the French Riviera in a wheelchair. What could possibly go wrong? Plenty in this farcical musical comedy that reminded me of the 1989 movie Weekend at Bernie’s, that became a cult classic. It is the second time the slapstick Lucky Stiff has played in Prahran in a little…
Patrick Marber’s searing psychological dramedy Closer is La Boite’s first offering for 2024. Directed by CEO and Artistic Director Courtney Stewart, the play packs a hefty punch. Larry and Alice both work in the skin trade: Larry is a dermatologist and Alice is a stripper. Larry is a ‘clinical observer of the human carnival’ and…
Off-the-wall … wacky and wild, this whodunnit is so much fun. Hark back to the middle of last century. Corpus Delicti! concerns a filthy rich divorced man who is about to turn 40. John Brady (Chris Saxton) has bought himself a private tropical island – Werewolf Island – on which he has built a mansion. He has inherited a…
The speculative fiction genre got a bit of a kick in the teeth back in 2000 with the release of China Miéville’s Perdito Street Station and Jeff Vandemeer’s City of Saints and Sinners. With these came the advent of what has become known as ‘New Weird’. One source in 2023, defined New Weird novels as…
Dev Patel makes his directorial debut with Monkey Man, a gritty, graphically violent, and brutal revenge thriller. The film follows the adventures of an enigmatic and taciturn character known only as “Kid”, who fights against the corruption and social injustice rife in contemporary India. Patel also plays the anonymous antihero, a kid who grew up…
In his seventh year at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Michael Shafar is laid back and effortlessly funny. In short, the 33-year-old knows how to entertain a crowd, as howls of laughter ring out throughout his hour-long standup routine, where nothing is sacred. He is clever and ribald and risqué. Home base – formerly Melbourne – is…
Scintillating and sensational. Riverdance is back and how! It has been more than a decade since this Irish originated troupe last visited Australia (they toured five times between 1997 and 2012) and this is their 25th anniversary show. First coming together for a seven-minute performance at the Eurovision Song Contest in Dublin in 1984, the following year…
Set in Galway, Ireland between May 2016 and March 2019, Duck Duck Goose explores sexual assault and its impact. I refer to the effect on the accuser and the accused, along with friends and family. Jane Scully (Rachel Nutchey) meets Chris Quinn (Mitchell Holland) in the aftermath of a house party, where Chris got wasted. Jane alleges she…
Following the award-winning Cormac Riley crime fiction series set in Ireland, Australian crime author Dervla McTiernan turned her attention to the United States. Her first novel set there was The Murder Rule, a courtroom/crime thriller based around the Innocence Project which was not all that successful. Her follow up, What Happened to Nina?, is something…
