Reviews

Shoebox Theatre Company’s Queensland premiere of First Date, is definitely a ‘swipe right’ – for its packed-house audience, it was love at first sight.

This production showcases the best thing about seeing so-called ‘amateur’ performances – the cast and crew infuse the show with a true sense of ensemble energy and infectious joy.

A love story between a performer and an audience member can’t go wrong, right? Wrong! Kaput, starring Tom Flanagan, is a delightful comedy that pays homage to the classic physical comedy and slapstick of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and skits such as “The Plank”. If audience reaction is anything to go by, physical comedy still well and truly hits the funny bone.

From the UK, Unpolished Theatre’s award-winning production of Elliot Warren’s Flesh and Bone is simply wonderful.

On a bare stage at Holden Street Theatre, the experience of modern life in an East London Council tower block is as often hilarious as it is poignant.

Over 70 minutes, and through a series of short scenes and monologues, five English working class characters – Terrence, Kel, Jamal, Reiss and Grandad – reveal their hopes and dreams, and ability to survive life’s hardships as members of the ‘lowest of the low’.

Choreographer and performer Omer Backley-Astrachan sees dance as a language – a form of communication “to be witnessed and reflected”.

Such is the challenge of contemporary dance. It requires an empathetic, compliant audience, willing to yield to the to the messages expressed, and prepared to translate and interpret them based on their own experience … and perhaps a brief suggestion from the choreographer.