Reviews

Hairspray

By Mark O’Donnell, Thomas Meehan, Marc Shaiman, and Scott Wittman. HAMA Productions. Directed by Vincent Hoope. Crown Theatre, Perth, WA. Sep 7-28, 2024

It’s the biggest show in town and boasts the nicest kids in town. This big budget, big talent production is playing at Perth’s largest theatre and deserves all its positive buzz.

Featuring the best bright colours of the 60s, Matthew McVeigh gives us a bright and beautiful set, toning beautifully with the gorgeous bigger and brighter than life wigs and costumes designed by Producer Marina Del Basso. Lucy Birkinshaw has provided a spectacular lighting design that adds a healthy sprinkling of stage magic.

The Queen’s Nanny

By Melanie Tait. Ensemble Theatre. Director Priscilla Jackman. 6 Sept – 12 Oct, 2024

Prince Harry took “Royal Memoirs” to a new, personal level in Spare, but how many people knew that the very first ‘inside the Royals’ story was told by a Scottish teacher who was hired to look after Harry’s grandmother and her sister in 1933.

The Addams Family

By Marshall Brickman, Rick Elice and Andrew Lippa. Musical Theatre Crew. Leiz Moore and Jaime Mollineaux (Direction). Andrew Castles (Musical Direction). Mandy Lowrie (Choregraphy). Leiz Moore (Set). Helen Cronin (Props and Costumes). The Playhouse Theatre, Hobart. 12-21 September 2024

The Addams Family is a well written show, with great characters, great songs, and a great message. It never fails to please. In this Senior Performance Ensemble production by the Musical Theatre Crew, every aspect is perfectly realised.

Dear Brother

By Lenny Donahue and Tibian Wyles. Presented by Queensland Theatre and BlakDance in association with Brisbane Festival. Directed by Isaac Drandic. Bille Brown Theatre, Queensland Theatre, 78 Montague Road, Brisbane 7th to 28th of September, 2024

Heathers: The Musical

By Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy. Pelican Productions. Arts Theatre, Adelaide. 12-15 September 2024

“Sex, suicide, mental health, not typically the thematic headliners of a youth theatre production.”  So states director, Georgia Broomhall, in her excellent directors notes for Pelican Productions terrific production of Heathers: The Musical by Laurence O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy. Yes – and no. Yes, because its subject matter is provocative and confronting; No – because these themes still matter to contemporary youth.

Wicked

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. Book by Winnie Holzman. Based on the novel by Gregory Maguire. Produced by John Frost for Crossroads Live. Directed by Lisa Leguillou (based on Joe Montello). Lyric Theatre, QPAC, Brisbane. Opening night Sat 14th September, 2024

If you are a little jaded about a new production of Wicked, because you have seen the show before, then I have to tell you, you have NOT seen Wicked until you have seen the current remarkable production.

Beautifully cast and directed, opening night showed that there is always something new to discover in a classic musical, and Wicked reached the classic status some years ago.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Music/Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim. Book: Hugh Wheeler. A Victorian Opera and New Zealand Opera Production. Director: Stuart Maunder. Conductor: Phoebe Briggs. Set/Costume: Roger Kirk. Lighting: Philip Lethlean. Playhouse, Arts Centre Melbourne. 14-21 September, 2024

This may be the darkest most horrifying musical ever written but, in the week we have been hearing endlessly about pet eating from a US Presidential candidate, it may also currently be the funniest.

This polished, energetic and technically brilliant production of the Victorian Opera about a wronged and vengeful barber and a lonely chancer pie shop proprietor literally grabs you by the throat and mesmerises you.

Legally Blonde

By Laurence O’Keefe, Nell Benjamin and Heather Hach. WAAPA. Directed by Crispin Taylor. Geoff Gibbs Theatre, WAAPA, Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley, WA. Sep 8-12, 2024

The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts’ production of Legally Blonde is their biggest production of the year. For many years, the combined Second and Third-Year Musical Theatre Students show has been held in an outside venue. Now back on campus, it is perhaps not surprising that this sold out quickly, but it is worthy of the excitement and buzz that surrounds this show.

Love Stories

Adapted by Tim McGarry with additional writing and story by Trent Dalton and Fiona Franzmann. Director and dramaturg Sam Strong. Presented by QPAC and Brisbane Festival. Playhouse Theatre. 08 - 29 September 2024.

Trent Dalton may have reached rock star status in his hometown. The excitement and enthusiasm in the crowd for opening night of Love Stories was electric. The audience wasn’t just at fever pitch because Brisbane is ever so proud of our local boy made good. We had at least seven more paragraphs worth of valid reasons to be so effervescent. 

A Vicar of Dibley Christmas – The Second Coming

By Ian Gower & Paul Carpenter. Adapted from the original TV series by Richard Curtis & Paul Mayhew. Henry Lawson Theatre, Werrington, NSW. Director Rhonda Hancock. 13th -28th Sept, 2024

It’s never easy directing – or acting in – a play based on a television series, especially when the characters are so well-known and quirky, and the play requires two sets used alternatively scene after scene! It works in film, but it’s darn hard in live theatre, especially when one character is required to move between scenes constantly!

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