Reviews

Every Musical Ever: A Break-Neck History of Musical Theatre

Adelaide Cabaret Festival: Australian/Adelaide Premiere. Dunstan Playhouse. June 18th 2022

If you are a lover of musicals and want to take the miserable out of Les Misérables or put the broad back in Broadway, this is the show that does it! Sadly, this was a once only performance for the Cabaret Festival, but should it tour; it is 100 delightful musical and acting minutes, where 50+ musicals and sundry other songs, are performed at breakneck speed and with judicious lyrical re-arranging. Well, actually minus overtures, sundry verses and with superimposed lyrics that are often hysterically witty and most commonly irreverent.

Show People

Starring Christie Whelan Browne. Written and Directed by Dean Bryant. Piano/Music Direction/Original Composition by Mathew Frank. Chapel off Chapel, Melbourne. 15 to 18 June 2022

Three powerhouses of Australian musical theatre have collaborated again to deliver a brilliantly funny, authentic foray into the lives of musical theatre performers. They cover a range of experiences one might have in this industry – the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Funhouse

Paul McDermott. Adelaide Cabaret Festival. The Famous Spiegeltent. June 16– 25, 2022

I struggle to think of another performer who injects political satire into a song any better than the multi-talented Paul McDermott. Coming to the Australian public’s attention in the late eighties as a member of comedy trio Doug Anthony Allstars, his quick wit and melodic voice continued during the nineties with the hit panel gameshow Good News Week.

Clue on Stage

Adapted from the Paramount Pictures film written by Jonathan Lynn and the board game from Hasbro, Inc. written by Sandy Rustin, based upon the works by Jonathan Lynn, Hunter Foster, Eric Price. Ballina Players. Ballina Players Theatre. June 17 – 26, 2022

I came away from Friday night’s performance of Clue on Stage at Ballina Players Theatre with mixed emotions. I was elated at having seen a really funny piece of theatre. But I was also struck with an immense feeling of pride. This cast and crew have had to overcome so many hurdles to get to Opening Night. Covid, the loss of homes, livelihoods and loved ones. I know these folk. Many of them intimately. I know their struggles. And yet they banded together to provide entertainment for us, the audience.

And how they entertained us!

Dream of Life

Emma Pask Album Launch for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. The Banquet Room, Adelaide Festival Centre. Saturday 18 Jun 2022

Thank you Adelaide Cabaret Festival for this gem. An album launch for the always engaging and highly professional Emma Pask with her simply brilliant band.   However, to the coy and reserved Adelaide audiences - provide a little colour and noise when invited… and at a jazz music event!  It is a given that we holler and cheer and celebrate the verve of live music and the artists delivering it, having been denied this pleasure for the ‘pandemically’ compromised period we have been through.

Female of the Species

By Joanna Murray-Smith. Hunters Hill Theatre. Director: Jennifer Willison. The Ryde Club. 17 June - 3 July, 2022

Jennifer Willison finds all the fun as well as the ‘bite’ in her production of Joanna Murray-Smith’s satire on “celebrity feminists”. She keeps the pace fast – from the opening monologue it’s clear Willison is going to make the audience sit up and be entertained.

Catherine Potter delivers that monologue succinctly, introducing Margot Mason as strong, in command, but suffering writer’s block as she attempts to begin yet another dissertation on breaking the ‘feminine mystique’.

A Doll’s House

By Henrik Ibsen. Adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith. Ensemble Theatre, Sydney. Directed by Mark Kilmurry. 10 June – 16 July 2022

Trying to modernise Ibsen’s great work is fraught with difficulties. The play ‘exploded like a bomb into contemporary life’, wrote an early biographer of the great writer. But what had seemed extraordinary and heart-stopping in 1879 – a wife leaving her husband and home without warning – is no longer extraordinary in 2022.

The Gospel According to Marcia

Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Her Majesty’s Theatre, Adelaide. Fri 17 Jun 2022

With a career spanning five decades, a back catalogue of 22 albums selling 2.6 million copies, and garnering countless chart-topping singles and multi-platinum records globally, Ms Marcia Hines is a shining beacon of experience, sass and talent and a welcome addition to the line-up for this Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

Love’s Bitter Mystery

By Steve Carey. Produced by Jak Scanlon, Frances Devlin-Glass, Steve Carey. Directed by Carly Wilding. Premiere screening Rivoli Cinema 200 Camberwell Rd, Hawthorn. 4 June 2022.

The film Love’s Bitter Mystery has been produced and presented as part of the program of Bloomsday in Melbourne’s Centenary of the publication of Ulysses Festival, its 29th Festival celebrating James Joyce. This project began as an immersive play set at Villa Alba, a late 19th century property in Kew of historical importance for its unique and decorative architecture and interior.

The Madness of George III

By Alan Bennett. The Rep. Arts Theatre, Adelaide. 16 - 25 June 2022

Written by one of Britain’s best known and revered playwrights, The Madness of George III tells the story of the King’s declining relationship with his eldest son, the foppish Prince of Wales (later George IV), particularly focusing on the period around the government’s Regency Crisis of 1788–89. It is a complex and challenging play that, at its best, embraces the style and language of the Regency era where extravagance in most matters, was the norm for what was then, arguably the world’s most powerful king.

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