Reviews

Queensland-based composer Corrina Bonshek aims to create uplifting musical experiences that connect people to nature. Piano Room is a new piece (it premiered at Redlands Performing Arts Centre earlier this year) and is a brilliant way to start the weekend in an intimate early morning performance for Brisbane Music Festival. Corrina created the concept and sound design, and mixes the sonic soundscape live on stage.

The Adelaide University Theatre Guild have out-Hitchcocked Hitchcock himself in their latest production of The 39 Steps, with many clever references to the master filmmaker’s films woven into the script and the set.

The 39 Steps is a parody adapted from the 1915 novel by John Buchan and the 1935 film by Alfred Hitchcock. The original concept and production of a four-actor version of the story was written by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, and premiered in 1996. Patrick Barlow rewrote this adaptation in 2005.

I have been watching shows put on by Gosford Musical Society for at least thirty years and like all groups, some of their productions are better than others.  To be fair, even the premier musical societies and theatrical companies in Sydney can blow hot and cold at times.  But last night’s opening of ‘Hunchback’ really kicked GMS into another level and was the best thing that I have ever seen on the Central Coast, period.

Somewhere up the NSW coast, north of Sydney, is the laid-back, close-knit community of McGuffin Park. They read the one-man-produced McGuffin Mail, back the local team McGuffin Hogs, eat delicious McGuffin’s Muffins, meet and drink at the ever-expanding McGuffin Arms. It seems that living inside Alfred Hitchcock’s favourite plot device is a breeze.