Reviews Archive

Opening Night is cleverly constructed: a play within a play, with the rehearsals and real-life scenes with the actors interwoven; and with leading lady Myrtle Gordon (Leeanna Walsman), a star of the stage for years, flitting in out of her realities and …

It’s hard to believe that this musical premiered in 2009, following the hugely successful 1980 film, yet has so many points to make that are still (sadly) relevant today. But although its underlying message is sober, everything else about 9 TO 5 …

Even before a word was spoken, the set and soundscape of At What Cost? promised something special. Birdsong and animal life swirl around; under a black, star-studded sky, on ground that can only be Aboriginal land, lie tree stumps and branches bleached …

New York film composer Arky Levin’s dilemma is this: Respect his wife Lydia’s dying wishes to not visit her in her final days, or be with her at her death. An excellent moral dilemma as posited in Heather Rose’s novel of The …

Watching Girl from the North Country, these thoughts were recurring: the singing is wonderful; the choreography is brilliant and hard to look away from; Dylan’s lyrics are timeless, able to adapt to Depression-era Minnesota as easily as Covid-ridden Sydney. And all the decades …

Introduced as a celebration of return to live theatre, with an opening song and dance number of grinning ‘amateur’ actors decked out in betasselled gold lamé, it’s clear that The Boomkak Panto is not taking itself too seriously. Or is it? Part …

The Woman in Black is back, risen from lockdown to once more spirit around the Ensemble stage. It can be hard to make melodrama work on stage but Jamie Oxenbould and Garth Holcombe pull us right into this Edwardian-era ghost story. From …

One of the opening scenes of Come From Away invites us to wonder about enduring 28 hours stuck on a plane, on the tarmac, on an unscheduled stop and with no adequate explanation for the compulsory and confined stopover. That’s what happened …

  Belinda Giblin’s relentlessly optimistic Winnie was a joy to behold and will remain a vivid memory.  I have not seen a better production of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, directed here by Craig Baldwin. From the moment the lights go up and …

American playwright Bess Wohl’s play has the audience giggling before anyone on stage has said anything. Minutes pass as Bill and Nancy, who we will soon learn have been married for 50 years, perform a wordless pas de deux as they lay …