Reviews Archive

  Inescapable fact: We’re all gonna die. Indisputable fact: The ‘death industry’, ie. those good folk helping the bereaved arrange funerals is massive (well, there’s always a demand – and just think of all those times you’ve heard ads exhorting you to …

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, with Zahra Newman as the titular cat Maggie, opens with her rendition of Cry Me A River, in which she holds the stage like a sultry cabaret star in a dark nightclub. It continues with an …

I’m not confident about reviewing classical music, but I am a big fan of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and have been lucky enough to attend many of their concerts over the years, so I just want to tell you that their latest …

“There’s nowt so queer as folk.” That’s an expression from the north of England (Yorkshire and Lancashire, if you want me to be precise), which basically means there is no accounting for human behaviour. It came to mind as I was watching …

Chaos versus order; the heart versus the head; science versus emotion. These are the themes running through Lucy Kirkwood’s ambitious new play Mosquitoes. At its heart is the relationship of two very different sisters, intellectually brilliant Alice (Jacqueline McKenzie) and her much …

The publicity photos for A Little Piece of Ash show the actors with cigarettes in various orifices but this is not a play about smoking, it’s about grieving and loss, and moving on. It’s about life. Jedda’s mum has just died. It …

Written in 1985/6, Willy Russell’s Shirley Valentine is something of a contemporary classic, but is it dated? Not in this production, with Sharon Millerchip in the title role. The only role, in fact, for this is a one-woman tour de force, and …

Tour de force can be an overused expression in reviewing theatre but I cannot think of a better way to describe Heather Mitchell’s wonderful portrayal of Cate McGregor. Cate’s journey from Malcolm McGregor – cricketer, rugby player, Duntroon graduate, speechwriter and advocate …

Fragmented in the telling and gently mesmerising, Youth and Destination is a series of 60 short scenes that reflect what it is to be young and aware in the 21st century. It runs the gamut from love to loneliness, flirtation to fear …

“You’ve never suffered from depression?” Lorna asks Connie. “No,” she responds. She’s been sad, but that’s not the same, is it? She seems slightly baffled at the notion of depression. “It’s an illness, right?” This exchange takes place at the beginning of The …