Reviews

Light Shining in Buckinghamshire

By Caryl Churchill. Belvoir Street Theatre. April 7 – May 26, 2022

British historians often skipped over the so-called Interregnum decade, between the beheading of Charles I in 1649 and the restoration of merry Charles II.  Cromwell’s period seemed more a puritan aberration than what it was – a brief spark of British liberty and revolutionary equality, before the property-holders brought it all down.

And so the monarchy was restored with more powers and resources than before the Civil War. (And my fervent Welsh ancestor was one of the first to be executed for signing the royal death warrant).

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot

By Stephen Adly Guirgis. Irish Theatre Players. Directed by Brendan Ellis. Irish Club, Townshend St, Subiaco, WA. April 21-30, 2022

The Irish Theatre Players’ The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is an interesting production with strong performances and much food for thought. Although its title and subject matter mean it may struggle to find an audience, this is a worthy watch for the serious theatre-goer and is a well-produced production.

Staged by award-winning director Brendan Ellis on a traverse stage, this is a highly intimate production and a crowd of about 30 on opening night, meant the auditorium felt quite full. 

The Adventures of Peter Rabbit

By Joseph Robinette. Hobart Repertory Theatre Company. Shauna-Lee Ward (Director). Rogan Brown (Set and Lighting Design). Helen Cronin (Creative Director). The Playhouse Hobart. 20 April – 1 May 2022

A good children’s show should appeal to adults as well. Parents can be assured the The Adventures of Peter Rabbit is no twee re-enactment of earnest and culturally anachronistic stories by overzealous actors in pantomime make-up. This Robinette adaptation, directed by Shauna-Lee Ward, is delightful.

Peepshow

Circa. Theatre Royal, Sydney. 20-24 April, 2022

Photographer: Andy Phillipson

Circa continues to extend circus beyond the ‘big top’. The thrills are still there – the amazing feats, the incredible strength and control – but Circa extends them and turns them into theatre. With this production it goes a little step further because Peepshow, as its name suggests, is just a little bit naughty and even quite cheeky! It’s cabaret on the move … and up in the air!

Emil and The Detectives

A play based on the 1929 novella by Erich Kästner. Slingsby Theatre Company. Director: Andy Packer. Playwright: Nicki Bloom. Lighting Design: Geoff Cobham & Chris Petridis. Composer & Sound Design: Quincy Grant. Designer: Wendy Todd & Ailsa Paterson. Gasworks Theatre, Melbourne. April 20 & 21, 2022.

After seeing this production I can see why it was winner of the 2018 Helpmann Award for Best Presentation for Children. Even before the lights went down, the audience, confronted with a sign saying 'Do Not Press' was instantly drawn into what wonder and mischief is about to conspire. For the next 70 minutes you could hear a pin drop!

Fame The Musical

By David De Silva, Jose Fernandez, Jacques Levy and Steve Margoshes. HAMA Productions. Directed by Adam Mitchell. Crown Theatre, Perth, WA. April 16 - 24, 2022

Fame The Musical is playing to enthusiastic Covid Capacity crowds at Crown Theatre. Locally produced by HAMA Productions, this is a bright and bounteous professional production that continues our Covid Legacy of top-notch locally produced musicals. Well directed by Adam Mitchell, it features a predominantly local cast that really pack a punch.

Hamlet

By William Shakespeare. Bell Shakespeare. Directed by Peter Evans. The Playhouse, Canberra Theatre, 4 – 16 April, 2022 and Arts Centre Victoria 28 Apr – 14 May.

A drop-dead brilliant performance by Harriet Gordon-Anderson is the shining beacon at the centre of Bell Shakespeare’s latest Hamlet. Back in February 2020, this production premiered at the Opera House as the first play of Bell Shakespeare’s 30th anniversary year. A fortnight later it was forced into hiatus by Australia’s first lockdown. It’s taken this long for the production to get the run it deserves.

To Schapelle And Back

Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The Butterfly Club. April 2022.

A true-blue Aussie is our Schapelle Corby, sentenced to twenty years for smuggling 4.2kg of marijuana in her boogie board bag. The new comedy show by Alex Hines To Schapelle And Back, in all its crazy mayhem, is a fuzzy expose about the tacky Australian Media and their piranha-like tactics for a news story, while raising issues around trauma.

Ross Noble: On the Go

Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Athenaeum Theatre, 188 Collins St. 30 March – 24 April 2022.

This show sees Ross Noble continually on the go in terms of his train of thought and his physical movement. Both indicate hyperactivity and there is a frequent suggestion of mania that is disarmingly captivating. Noble takes a very risky approach to stand-up comedy and has a very loose structure to the show, if any at all. This is part of the skill and charm that he displays which produces a complex web of impressions, observations and inner workings of an extremely busy mind.

The Boys

By Gordon Graham. Alchemy Artistic. Directed by Amy Kowalczuk. Produced in affiliation with Shadowhouse PITS and Sophie Benassi. ACT Hub at The Causeway Hall, Kingston. 13 – 16 April 2022

With terrifying realism, punctuated with moments of stylized beauty both sublime and dreadful, Alchemy Artistic’s debut production The Boys is a meticulously crafted exploration of masculinity at its most toxic. Loosely based on Anita Cobby’s murder, the horror here is not in graphic violence but in the hyperreal presentation of male brutality, an emotional landscape increasingly bulging with anger which devastates all when it erupts.

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