Reviews

England & Son

Adelaide Fringe – The Studio, Holden Street Theatres. Presented by Holden Street Theatres’ Edinburgh Fringe Award ’23 in association with HOME Manchester and Tin Cat Entertainment. 16 February to 17 March 2024

An eight-year-old boy loves working with his dad, taking down old buildings – that’s the gentle trundling start of this turbulent story of one man’s life, and the people and politics that shaped him.

Hamlet in 15 Minutes

Adelaide Fringe – The Barbara Hardy Garden. Presented by Holden Street Theatres.16 February to 17 March 2024

I’m not usually a fan of rushing Shakespeare, even for comedy – not because the text is deserving of reverence and contemplation (though it is), but because there’s so much packed into the language. Of course, careful editing is often helpful for 21st century audiences, but slashing a three hour play to fifteen minutes must be missing something, surely?

Duchess of Malfi

By John Webster. Presented by Arrant Knaves Theatre Company. Adapted and directed by Tom Bradley. Meat Market, 3 Blackwood St, North Melbourne. 15-24 February 2024

Webster’s Jacobean drama is typically inspired by a true story and is a very complex and grim play. The tale of the murder of the Duchess and her family after her secret marriage to a courtier, to protect title and property, reveals high levels of religious and political corruption and misdeeds. The characters are very multifaceted, and the story is quite convoluted making the text very challenging to stage.

Bernadette Robinson – Divas

Director Simon Phillips. Riverside Theatre Parramatta. 15-17 Feb, 2024

Only a performer as skilled and versatile as Bernadette Robinson could possibly hope to inhabit the diverse lives of ten of the most famous musical divas of our time. From Maria Callas to Amy Winehouse; Judy Garland to Miley Cyrus; Dame Shirley Bassey to Amy Winehouse; along with Piaf, Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton and Karen Carpenter, Robinson takes her enthralled audience seamlessly from opera to pop, contemporary pop star to war time chanteuse.

The Portable Dorothy Parker

By Annie Lux. Adelaide Fringe: Australian Premiere. Grove Goddess Productions, Fringe Management and Joanne Hartstone. Holden Street Theatres: The Arch. 13th February to 17th March.

The year is 1943 and America has entered the Second World War. American poet, writer, critic, wit, and satirist, Dorothy Parker, based in New York, is faced by her publisher with selecting a collection of her poems and short stories for overseas based servicemen. Ultimately, the volume, called the ‘Portable’ series, compiled over two dozen of Parker's short stories along with selected poems from her works Enough Rope, Sunset Gun, and Death and Taxes. It remained in continuous print until 1976.

Eftihia – Life Has Two Doors

By Helen Yotis. La Mama Courthouse. Feb 14 – 25, 2024

The Greek Blues known as Rebetiko is a genre of music that became a lifestyle for the poor and disenfranchised during the nineteen twenties and thirties.  After the destruction of Smyrna in Asia Minor during the 1922 occupation, the residing Greeks were forced to immigrate to Greece. They survived and yet thrived during these arduous years to sing and dance their blues away in tavernas where their local musicians and artists would gather to entertain the crowds.

The Wharf Revue: Pride in Prejudice

By Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe & Phillip Scott. Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Union Theatre, University of Melbourne. 12 – 24 February 2024 (Other venues to follow)

The indefatigable and incorrigible Wharf Revue people are back: Mandy Bishop, Drew Forsythe, Jonathan Biggins and David Whitney.  These performers are brilliant clowns and mimics.  Actual resemblances to their victims may be slight, but a suit, a wig, a single gesture and we know who’s being eviscerated before a word is spoken.  Drew Forsythe’s Joe Biden is a wildly exaggerated (unfair?) caricature but we sure know straight off who he is.  Likewise, Jonathan Biggins’ King Charles, or his Albo.  And, very even-handed, even David Marr gets a

Jungle Book reimagined

Akram Khan Company. Perth Festival. Heath Ledger Theatre, State Theatre WA. 9 - 17 February, 2024.

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling has been totally reinvented by Akram Khan (director and choreographer) with a futuristic script by Tariq Jordan.

Ultra-modern dance, animated drawings as projections, and original music by Jocelyn Pook bring the new folktale to vibrant but grungy life.

You see, Mowgli is reimagined as a modern-day refugee, torn from her home on life-threatening flood waters caused by climate change.

A Fool in Love

By Van Badham. Sydney Theatre Company. Wharf 1 Theatre. Feb 12 – Mar 17, 2024

In a NSW Central Coast palazzo a bankrupt Otto is trying desperately to marry off his daughter before her 30th birthday so that he can win the millions promised in his late brother’s will. The problem is that his daughter Phynayah, a Barbie lookalike, is so dumb that all her suitors and even tutors leave always give up.

The Pool

By Steve Rodgers. Perth Festival. Bold Park Aquatic Centre (215 The Boulevard, City Beach, WA.) Opening night, Sunday 11 February, 2024, playing until 25 February.

Writer, Steve Rodgers, had a great idea while swimming at his local pool - what if all these interesting, diverse people surrounding him, swimming, diving, training, gossiping and eating, were characters in a play, set in a pool?

He wanted to write about the community spirit that finds all manner of people using the same public space for a variety of reasons, exploring the healing power of water.

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