Reviews

Weddings and funerals have each provided extremely fertile ground for storytellers and dramatists down through the ages, owing to the propensity of these occasions for bringing together people with deep emotional connections to each other, then letting us see how those connections are tested and how those emotions are stirred.

Toowoomba Choral Society’s production of My Fair Lady proved why the musical is regarded as one of the best, if not the best, musical ever written. Director Kate Peters, on a sabbatical from her Gold Coast domain, knows her musical theatre, and this production was first class all the way. Great performances from a top notch cast meant that Lerner and Loewe’s masterpiece crackled with wit, captivated with melody, and blossomed, like the flowers in Eliza’s basket, into radiant joy.

Theatre & Company's current production of the hilarious and risqué musical of The Full Monty, with music and lyrics by David Yazbek and book by Terrence McNally, was a very enjoyable night, full of high-quality performances and directional choices.

A group of long-term unemployed men from Buffalo N.Y. get together to put on a “one night only” strip performance. They go the “Full Monty” to make a motser and earn some respect from the community and some of their partners.

When Melbourne was a new settlement it was named Batmania (1835 -1837), after one of its founders, John Batman. At this year’s Fringe Festival, supported by Theatreworks, the collective team at The Very Good Initiative have developed two separate events under the banner of “Batmania” - an Expo ‘19 and a Bus Tour.