Reviews

Miranda’s Young Frankenstein is as spectacular as it is fun. The cast gets all the vaudeville, innuendo, double entendre, single entendre, and slapstick (or should that be schlappshtick?) absolutely right.

The Paris Underground Cabaret returns to Melbourne and the opening of the new season went off with quite a bang, I expected nothing less and received more, expectations exceeded. Treated to a feast of sophisticated performances, we had a taste of magic, circus, song, dance, burlesque, and if all this is not enough to satisfy, there was clever comedy to carry us gracefully through the show.  All this packaged into a seductive cabaret, a visual sensation that delighted the eye accompanied by the pleasure of French singing and music to be relished throughout.

This is a charming theatrical venture that draws directly from the theatre of the absurd. PARLEY! especially looks to the work of Beckett in Waiting for Godot. Ant (Larkin) and Pea (Besselink) are two characters who are lost at sea and this functions as a metaphor for their existence. There is an instant quaintness about their appearance which is aided by a beautifully designed and very atmospheric set. The gentle rhythms of the dialogue convey warmth from the characters that is rather unexpected and uncharacteristic of the genre.

I was waiting next to the Lord Mayor of Sydney Clover Moore to enter the ‘theatre’ when someone who resembled a vagrant started urinating into a gutter a few metres away.

The Lord Mayor was convinced he was an authentic drunk - up until we saw him again - playing the guitar inside.

This wasn’t the first or the last surprise of the evening. It appeared that even the most jaded theatre critic and opening night ‘luvee’ was entertained and fascinated by what was a lavish evening of immersive theatre.