Reviews

Kinetics, being performed for the first time outside the UK, at the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre, is a true story of a woman in her fifties, with Parkinson's Disease, who encounters a teenage boy, who is into Parkour.

Produced by Sue Edge, who also has Parkinson’s disease, the show seeks to spread awareness of the condition, while also being a fascinating show. Both named Sue, and both teachers, the writer, and producer have quite a few things in common, including being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at 50 and 51 respectively.

It’s a play about ‘Hollywood’.  The ‘bone’ in question is a low-budget movie already in production.  The ‘dogs’ are four competing and very self-interested parties: the fading lead actress, Collette (Tania Knight), the beset producer, Bradley (Kostas Ilias), the ambitious ingenue (does anyone say ‘ingenue’ anymore?) Brenda (Xanthe Gunner) and the ‘sensitive’ writer, Victor (William Atkinson).  Bradley’s problems, apart from wrangling these people and a painful anal problem, is that it’s a seven-mill

Sister Winnie’s regular Guiness and singalong evening with middle-aged guitarist Stephen is abruptly shattered when 15-year-old Kayleigh hurls a brick through the front window of the nun’s house in the deprived Yorkshire seaside town of Withernsea. There’s nowt so queer as Folk, as the saying goes, and playwright Tom Wells takes pleasure in introducing us to three of the queerest, most mismatched characters ever to share space in the same play.

As brilliant a wordsmith as he was and as intriguing as his stories may be, Billy's oeuvre isn't for everyone. It's a veritable brain banquet when done well or downright baffling in the wrong hands. And the more our vernacular changes, the less accessible he becomes. Little wonder then, that some companies choose to specialise in his works, to keep honing and reinvigorating the genre.