Reviews

Avenue Qfirst arrived on stage in 2003 and has been delighting (and shocking) audiences around the world for this past 15 years. Coming from the courageous genius of Jeff Whitty, Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez, it broke the mould of musical theatre by presenting a very adult story in a Sesame Street-like context. Having personally seen Avenue Q three times now, it still causes my ribs to ache!

The ins and outs of worldwide politics are fraught with power plays, back stabbing, bullying and ‘interesting’ interpretation of facts. The fraught characters within the political world include ambitious top dogs and repressed underdogs, together with hard workers and the not so inclined. Tim Firth’s delightfully funny comedy The Flint Street Nativity demonstrates that even among seven- year-olds in any junior school, ‘political’ power play and even similar characters are also present.

There was much to like about this old war-horse. Updated to the 1930s, the set was half an octagon and the sides spun around for different scenes, allowing for smooth transitions.

The opera was very colourful with a great variety of disparate characters inhabiting the chorus. There was a lot of activity in the second act, with an upper level in the café.

On their first ever visit to Australia, Teatro Alla Scala Ballet Companycouldn’t have had a better showpiece than Rudolf Nureyev’s Don Quixote, long a favourite with Australian audiences ever since he danced it with the Australian Ballet in 1970 and later immortalized on film in 1972. With its swirling caped matadors, castanet clicking gypsies, and a succession of spectacular diverissements it’s a feast of classical dance which this company execute with a grand bravura style.