Reviews

A school holiday treat from Stray Cats Theatre and ADAPT, Alice in Wonderland was originally slated for Mandurah Performing Arts Centre’s smaller Fishtrap Theatre. Social distancing requirements meant that it was performed in MANPAC’s much larger Boardwalk Theatre, to very well distanced capacity audiences.

I have always loved the sound of piano and voice and there was no shortage of it in this show by 70 of the Musical Theatre students from Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University. Performed in the QPAC Concert Hall, reconfigured in concert mode, i.e. the audience sitting behind the stage and looking out at the auditorium, and everyone social distanced, it was a surprisingly intimate concert of show songs both old and new.

So many great performances and so many highlights.

Any platform that brings the subject of mental illness to the forefront of conversation deserves an audience. The timing of this latest production is perfect, as we deal with a global pandemic and the frailties that it has unleashed. With plenty of material aimed at an adult audience, it is refreshing to see a child’s perspective and journey represented.

This is the fourth and final instalment in the series which livestreams original works by writers exploring their experience of life under COVID-19 restrictions in a range of remote and exotic locations around Australia. The pieces are read by the writers and the recordings are live-streamed. Each work reflects on the disturbances caused by the pandemic and the way lives have been dramatically disrupted.