Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza is the most acrobatically dangerous show yet, with its homage to the traditions of circus, interpreted by the Cirque du Soleil artists and creators. The show combines acrobatics with the art of clowning. An international cast of 50 acrobats, musicians, magicians, singers, actors and artists present a journey of heart stopping…
Powerful vocals, a strong musical score and a deteriorating relationship are the hallmarks of The Last Five Years, written and composed by American Jason Robert Brown, starring Verity Hunt-Ballard (Sweet Charity) and Josh Piterman (West Side Story). It is the story of two twenty-somethings – he Jewish and she not – who fall in and…
A rites of passage story with strong romantic elements and a film built on the musical foundations of 1980s British bands, Sing Street focuses on the perils and wonders of teenage life. Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is one of three children living in a toxic environment. At just 15, he has a brother, six years his…
A Life in the Theatre, by David Mamet, is an early play (1977) and considerably out of the usual area and style of his more well known genre – of the ‘Mamet-speak’ with macho, foulmouthed men squabbling over the way to make money; epitomised in his famous Pulitzer Prize winning, Glengarry Glen Ross, of 1984,…
“Rock stars don’t ever die,” sings Sting in “50,000,” a song from his first album of original pop/rock material in 13 years. “They only fade away,” he concludes, no doubt a twist on Neil Young’s lyric that “it’s better to burn out than to fade away.” In Sting’s song, reportedly written shortly after Prince’s death,…
Inferno is the third film adapted from the series of novels written by Dan Brown featuring the religious symbologist Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks). A symbologist is the type of arcane profession that only exists within the cloistered world of academia or the pages of thriller novels. Although the second novel in the series,…
A rich, harrowing and deeply evocative story has been superbly translated into captivating musical theatre in this Australasian premiere production of The Color Purple – The Musical. It charts the life of Celie Johnson (played by Jayme-Lee Hanekom – Disney’s The Lion King), a battered and downtrodden African-American woman from when she was a 14-year-old…
The contemporary heist Western Hell or High Water comes from British director David MacKenzie (the violent prison film Starred Up), who gives us a rather bleak picture of an economically depressed dustbowl area in rural Texas, where family farms are falling into disuse and disrepair and the roads are lined with signs offering debt relief….
A charming, feel good Italian comedy about a stuck-up mummy’s boy who has to change his ways if he is to ever find a partner in life, Where Am I Going? has become the highest grossing movie in Italian history – and it’s not hard to see why. The story takes a not-so-subtle dig at…
Razor sharp writing by Joanna Murray-Smith (featuring acerbic put downs), and bravura acting performances, are features of the brilliant two-hander Switzerland. The focus is the best-selling author of The Talented Mr Ripley, Patricia Highsmith, who is living as a recluse in the Swiss alps. She finds solace in her seclusion, her cats, her booze and…
