Mothering Sunday is a period drama about doomed love which comes across like an edgier variation on Upstairs Downstairs. The film is set mainly in the spring of 1924. The central character is Jane Fairchild (played by Australian actress Odessa Young), a maid working for the aristocratic Niven family. Jane is an orphan and although…
Five lost souls in their early 30s try to get more out of life than what they have in John Patrick Shanley’s Savage in Limbo. Set in a bar in the Bronx in the 1980s, the barman has a strict rule – if you don’t have a drink in front of you, then you’re out. April White…
Two strangers find themselves trapped in a barren room with a gun. They have no idea how they got there or what will become of them. In any event, the outlook is bleak. One could shoot the other or they could both starve to death. The character known simply as A (Boaz Hulme) starts with bravado, but then his…
What is fact and what is fiction? You are left asking that question after an exhilarating 50 minutes at Chapel Off Chapel, with the wonderfully written and performed gay political thriller Dirt. The intrigue keeps ratcheting up. Just when you think you have a fix on what is going on, the rug is pulled from under you. The…
Two loners connect over literature. One is a 53-year-old Yale professor of creative writing. The other is a freshman who is engaged by her lectures. They bond over Dostoevsky. Bella Baird is a single woman without children. Her father passed away from a heart attack at age 62 and her mum died a horrible death from stomach cancer when…
Hercule Poirot step aside; for Chief Inspector Jules Maigret is on the case. In director Patrice Leconte’s Maigret, Gerard Depardieu takes on the title role as an ageing, unwell cop trying to track down a murderer. It’s Paris, 1953 and a young woman has been found dead. The victim, Louise Louviere (Clara Antoons), is no…
I feel the need… the need for a sequel! And 36 years after the original, director Joseph Kosinski (Only the Brave) delivers a sequel that fans have been craving with Top Gun: Maverick. The film deftly walks the line between paying homage to the past while moving the franchise forward – if you can call…
The story and staging remain just as utterly absorbing and intoxicating in the new, one part Harry Potter and The Cursed Child as when it was divided into two. All the key “magic” components – and I assure you they are extraordinary – have been retained. The stage show moves along at a cracking pace as Harry’s…
The treatment of indigenous Australians and their remains is in the spotlight in The Return. Inspired by Yorta Yorta man Jason Tamiru’s experiences as a repatriation worker, Torres Strait Islander playwright John Harvey recounts the dark history of Australia. It concerns grave robbers and “exotic” trophies of antiquity, being the bones of men, women and children. They…
If anything will put you off working at a fast-food outlet, look no further than Red Stitch’s latest production. A world premiere, Fast Food is a comedy concerning a manager, assistant manager and three staff at a burger joint. Think McDonald’s or Hungry Jack’s. For the manager, Troy (Kevin Hofbauer), a vegetarian, it is all about…
