Superlatives hardly do justice to the magnificent staging of one of Disney’s all-time favourites, Beauty and the Beast, which has been revised and enhanced. The striking sets and glorious costuming set the scene for a joyful celebration of song and dance … and the Hollywood ending that everyone wants to see play out. Fast-moving advances in technology…
Elvis: A Musical Revolution is an exciting spectacle from its outset as the audience is transitioned from its recreated iconic mononymic neon ’68 Comeback Special signage, through an electrifying ‘Burning Love’ dance number, to the Beal Street and Sun Record Studio days of Elvis’ early 1940s and ‘50s life. The award-winning exploration of pivotal moments…
I’ve often commented to people that it is much more difficult to write a glowing review than something at the other end of the spectrum. This experience makes putting together a review of Ad Astra’s Merrily We Roll Along a daunting task for I fear I may have insufficient superlatives for the company’s first musical…
Billy Elliot The Musical remains as moving and evocative as when I first saw it at Her Majesty’s Theatre on 1stJanuary, 2009 … and what a magnificent show it is. For me, this is up there with the best musicals brought to the stage. It is based on the successful 2000 film, which starred Jamie…
Sharing a house with friends and/or strangers can be anything but straightforward. Sometimes, mighty testing, in fact. So it is in the new Australian musical Share House, which is simply delightful. Former classmates Lucy and Jane are as different as chalk and cheese. Now young adults, they have been living together for what seems like forever. Bossy, at times…
The bawdy meets the bizarre in the Australian premiere of the tragicomic musical The Grinning Man, which is based on the 1869 Victor Hugo novel The Man Who Laughs. He is, of course, best known for Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. With music by Tim Phillips and Marc Teitler, lyrics by that pair, Carl Grose…
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…
The Disney stage musical Beauty and the Beast The Musical (music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Howard Ashman and Tim Rice, and book by Linda Woolverton) is a classic; the original Broadway production, adapted from Walt Disney Pictures’ Academy Award-winning 1991 animated feature musical film of the same name, ran for over 13 years on…
Like many musicals, every production of, Rent is somehow a bit different, especially as more time passes since the iconic rock musical’s debut on Broadway now over 25 years ago. Rent went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (awarded posthumously to its creator, Jonathan Larson who tragically died at the age of 35,…
Starting in Georgia in 1909 and spanning 38 years, The Color Purple is based around the struggles of African-American woman Celie Harris (Fantasia Barrino). Celie and her sister Nettie (Halle Bailey), are brought up by their abusive father Alfonso (Deon Cole) since their mother died some time ago. Alfonso marries off Celie to an equally…
