Reviews

When news first broke that a musical was being made based on the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail I was so excited that I bought a ticket to see it on Broadway. The sketches in the movie are still so familiar that sitting in the Hayes Theatre I could anticipate great wads of dialogue and I was regularly interrupted (inside my head) with flashbacks to the original actors. Such is the experience of a child of the 1970’s who watched the movie over and over.

Playing to full houses, this is an inspiringly ambitious work by writer Christine Croyden.  Underground is a pastiche of scenes about the life of Nancy Wake a New Zealander - claimed as an Australian.  She worked in the French underground resistance - a highly romanticized occupation.  Wake left Sydney for Paris at eighteen.  Known as ‘The White Mouse’ (die Weisse Maus), she lived a long life - from 1912 to 2011.  Her extraordinary youthful years offer rich and intriguing material to explore for theatrical presentation.

The Merchant of Venice is perhaps one of the less frequently performed Shakespeare plays, mostly because of the obvious anti-semitic feeling. This production is set in Venice, but in 1938, and is set alongside anti-Jewish policies in Mussolini’s Italy, the visit of Hitler to Italy and the looming shadow of the Second World War. Played in the beautiful outdoor New Fortune Theatre, which mimics the dimensions of the 1600 Fortune Theatre, on a warm Meditteranean-like evening, it is the perfect setting for some good Shakespearean Theatre.

Inspired by the village church that was once the gathering place of their small Quebec community, Cirque Alfonse have travelled from Canada to bring us one of the most exhilarating acts of this year’s Fringe. Tabarnak is an expletive used to protest outrage at authority. As the word suggests, it gets your attention.