Reviews

Harbour Theatre’s On A First Name Basis was a sweet, moving little comedy. Well constructed by playwright Norm Foster, it is written with lovely moments, but it is also very dependent on having an excellent pair of actors to steer it to success.

Directors Peter Kirkwood and Nicola Bond chose ideal actors. Jarrod Buttery and Meredith Hunter, both excellent, well-respected performers in their own right, have previous on-stage relationships and work together seemingly organically and intuitively.

Bambert’s Book of Lost Stories is charming, imaginative theatre. Based on the award-winning German book written in 1998 by Reinhardt Jung, the plot finds Bambert, an impossibly small man, living above a grocer shop and obsessed with writing. One day he realises his stories have no home because nobody has ever read them so he sends them out into the world via balloon hoping they will be returned.

It is the generosity of spirit this work is imbued with that reaches out to us all.   In Between Two is two stories of how two young ‘hip hop’ artists - Joel Ma who is half Chinese and half Pilipino James Mangohig - grew and developed into the charismatic men they are today.

The audience is kept on its toes as each story unfolds in turns, starting with the rarefied history of Joel Ma’s extraordinary Grandmother Edith.

Last Cab to Darwin tells the true story of terminally ill Max Bell, a Broken Hill taxi driver, and his journey to Darwin to take advantage of the Northern Territory's newly created euthanasia laws. On the way, Max encounters odd-ball characters in the country towns that he passes through, until he finally reaches Darwin.

The story was told on a functional set with a background of corrugated iron, the front of a car and a screen depicting the road north. Music that varies from Midnight Oil to Abba accompanied Max on his journey.