Queensland Theatre is putting the emphasis on fast and furious fun at the Cremorne Theatre as the comic adaptation of John Buchan’s novel and Alfred Hitchcock’s film, The 39 Steps, woos capacity audiences. The Master of Suspense brought John Buchan’s much loved 1915 Boys’ Own story to the big screen in 1935. But it’s a…
Disney’s Aladdin is simply a mind-blowing visual experience that had the audience in ecstasies that resembled an old time US revival meeting as they screamed, cheered, and gasped in adoration. With American accents it was Disney all the way with feel, audience pitch, values and quality. For me, after an adult life time involved in…
Kathryn Marquet’s The Dead Devils of Cockle Creek begins in darkness. When the stage is lit, it reveals a ramshackle ranger’s station shack somewhere in the wilds of south-western Tasmania. Centre-stage is Dr George Templeton (Emily Weir), cradling an infant devil in her arms. The environmental scientist is determined, passionate and intelligent enough to know…
Before it was a The Rocky Horror Picture Show of 1975, Rocky Horror Show was already a cult classic. It was at once a humorous tribute to science fiction and B grade horror movies and a culturally iconic examination of empowerment and fluid-sexuality. The adults-only musical written by Richard O’Brien tells the story of conservative newly-engaged…
Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” (part of the final movement of his Symphony No. 9) is a thorough examination of the emotion of joy as being heavenly in origin and available to mankind through a loving God. In A Clockwork Orange, however, it represents a thematic extension of 15-year-old protagonist Alex’s psychological conditioning. As the vicious…
Here we go again… More than ten years later and Mamma Mia! the Musical is still delighting fans. Despite the fact that many audiences members were born well after ABBA’s heyday, the pop anthems interwoven with a sweet story of love and family still generate smiles, whoops and applause after every performance. If you’re not…
Given the way they’re heralded around the world as an exciting and innovative physical theatre company, Circa is surely one of Queensland’s great cultural exports. And it’s always wonderful to have them perform to a home-town crowd. They will now be part of a multi-year partnership with QPAC, which begins with their show Humans, an…
In a solicitor’s rooms in Brisbane, baby-boomer siblings, Richard, Evonne and Kelly Whittaker are read their late father, Daniel’s will. Daniel has left his grieving children a substantial estate. Before they can collect their inheritance however, the three Whittakers are required to hand-deliver twelve letters to a list of apparent strangers. Each sibling has had…
Marianne (Marta Dusseldorp) and Johan (Ben Winspear) are cosy in the comfort of their overly-scheduled, boring bourgeois lives … well that’s what they tell a magazine interviewer when being asked about their union. But what lies behind their facade and how long will it be before their imperfect love begins to dissolve? These are the…
Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble’s Bogga begins with a rent-a-crowd supported riot at Brisbane’s infamous Boggo Road Gaol; it’s one of the ‘80s riots probably provoked by the university 4ZZZ radio station as was seemingly the norm, soundtracked by songs of the ‘Pig City’ sort. And the old Cement Box Theatre proves to be the perfect location…
