Reviews

Black Swan State Theatre Company's production of York has been over two years in the making - and was well worth the wait. A striking and compelling production, it is an unusual compilation of genres - the most dominant being horror - and I have it on reliable authority that multiple audience members from Opening Night are reporting nightmares,

Andrew Bovell is one of our best and most frequently performed playwrights. His stage adaptation of Kate Glenville’s novel The Secret River won five Helpmann Awards in 2013, his 1996 Awgie Award-winning Speaking in Tongues became the critically acclaimed 2001 movie Lantana, whilst his When the Rain Stops Falling has become a modern masterpiece, was named the ‘Best Play of 2010’ by Time magazine and won 5 awards when it was produced at Lincoln Center, New York.

Emil and the Detectives is about a group of kids who band together to help a boy recover his stolen goods and get justice. It’s the first and quintessential story of the genre, later personified by Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five. Based on Erich Kästner’s novella, Emil und die Detektive, first published in 1929, it has never been out-of-print. And Slingsby’s production, directed by Andy Packer, and adapted by Nicki Bloom, looks like setting its own record having toured Australia, USA, India, China and the UK.

Opera Queensland this year celebrates its 40th Anniversary, and what better way to celebrate it than a sparkling new production of an opera that is considered a cornerstone of the repertoire, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. The story of the servants Figaro and Susanna and their efforts to get married and foil the efforts of their philandering employer, Count Almavira to seduce Susanna, is the classic infidelity plot enjoyed throughout the years in everything from Upstairs Downstairs to Downton Abbey.