Reviews

Six talented young actors give us six lonely people in a series of linked two-hander scenes.  It’s more sketch dramedy than a ‘play’, but it holds together in Short Cuts mode.  There is light and shade, changes of pace and even style.  Some of the sketches are funny in a ‘that’s so true’ sort of way, some are sad and awkward, and a couple perhaps outstay their welcome.

Queensland Symphony Orchestra have capped off a stellar seventieth birthday year with a stellar concert featuring Hungarian violin virtuoso Barnabas Kelemen. Kelemen, a last minute replacement for the indisposed Maxim Vengerov, proved he was not only a master of his instrument but also of the concert stage, with an electrifying performance of Brahms Violin Concert.

What an Abbasolutely fabulous night in the theatre, that is as refreshing as a popsicle on a hot summer’s day, with as much heart and warmth as your mother’s baked dinner.  The biggest surprise is that not only are the songs of the famous Swedish quartet seamlessly integrated into the narrative, but that the four band members make frequent return visits as fairy-Godmother like characters.

Written by British actor and playwright Charles Dyer, Wanted – one body! has been staged constantly since its first production in 1961. Set on a stormy night ‘many years ago’ in an old stately home in England, with lots of crashing thunder, flashing lightning, eerie wailing, a sliding panel and the occasional piercing scream, the play has all the essentials of a typical ‘whodunnit’. But, with a couple of disappearing corpses it turns from ‘thriller’ into a crazy mix of comedy and mystery.