Reviews

Taku Mbudzi is a talented storyteller whose work successfully transposes across platforms; podcasts, filmmaking and stand-up comedy are among them. In this show Mbudzi takes a very personal approach and considers her achievements as an African woman trying to make her way in the world.

She has many intriguing and engaging anecdotes related to her African heritage and settling in Australia. Many of the stories have universal appeal; the pressure to get married, dealing with expectations of family members and getting ahead in the working world as a woman of colour.

Shakespeare’s magical comedy here opens darkly on a ruined wall of old planks and openings, fronted by a clutter of upturned tables and chairs.  No colour or fairy lights in sight.

Indeed, this foreboding atmosphere suits the cruelty at stake in Athens as Theseus orders that Hermia (Ahunim Abebe) must face execution if she doesn’t obey her father and marry Demetrius (Mike Howlett).  Hermia however longs for Lysander (Laurence Young), while her old schoolmate Helena (Isabel Burton) adores the unyielding Demetrius.

There are so many laughs in The Wharf Revue: Pride in Prejudice that I want to see it again immediately! This show is so much more than know-it-all political satire: it is cleverly constructed and thoughtfully scripted; it provides much-needed comic relief through an overview of crazy current events that will make you think while you are crying with laughter! Key to the success of the 20-something-year-old revue is the astuteness and craft of its creators, Jonathan Biggins, Drew Forsythe and Phillip Scott, and the experience that the performers bring to their sharp material.

Raised in a cult, Colin’s parents were matched in a mass wedding in Madison Square Garden in the 1980s by a charismatic Korean who said he was the returning messiah.

Ebsworth offers a prologue on how this isn’t going to be a laugh-out-loud show that pokes fun at the Unification Church cult, but as his quick-witted storytelling unfolds with history, hard-hitting emotion, and comedy, I can’t think that anyone would be upset, even if they wanted wall to wall chuckling.