Reviews

Chess the musical is not unlike the game it depicts - deceptively and demandingly complex. The music is difficult, the movement requires focused and adroit choreography and its performers need both the acting and vocal chops to do its tension fuelled scenes and songs justice. A lot can go wrong in this production,and it can be hard to find the people needed to get it right. OSMaD found them, and have presented what is a powerful and consistently interesting production of a very challenging piece.

Australian audiences have had a love affair with Russian dance companies ever since Michael Edgley and Andrew Guild began touring them to Australia in the 1960’s. It’s this love of Russian dance that permeates the whole performance of the Festival of Imperial Russian Ballet, a pop-pourri of popular pieces from the classical repertoire.

We Love Arabs is a dance-comedy-drama show; it is simple in concept but rich in metaphor, allegory and irony.  It is beautifully, straight-facedly executed satire and – beneath its wit and its piss-take on the pretensions of ‘contemporary dance, a bitingly serious piece.  It is – ostensibly and actually - about those awkward neighbours, the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The most important things to get right are the place and the time. The Kitchen Sink is set in the fading seaside village of Withernsea, East Yorkshire, a few years ago as Martin’s milk delivery float, a risky rival to Tesco, is rapidly running out of business. Director Shane Bosher, with no assistance from the Ensemble’s program, completely nails it.