Reviews

With a quick reference to Father’s Day, Tegan Jones presents a show about the musical connections (and more) between dads and daughters – that’s why ‘Miley’ gets into the title: Miley Cyrus is the daughter of Billy Ray.  And Moon Unit is the daughter – yes, really - of Frank Zappa.  Tegan Jones’ Dad is not a musician, but he has given his daughter a love of music that goes way beyond recognising a tune, singing along or tapping your foot.  He’s the kind of enthusiast that buys recordings of every production of Les Miserables

Helen (Brigid Gallacher) runs a decrepit pub in the middle of a nowhere that was once maybe a somewhere – before the civil war, before the country was divided and poisoned by chemical weapons so that nothing grows, before the totalitarian government with its draconian laws took over.  Somehow Helen maintains a sense of humour and some optimism, maybe because she thinks there’s a way out…  Meanwhile, she and her bitter, one-armed war veteran father, Stewart (Dion Mills), sell illegal and probably lethal hooch brewed up by Claire (Olga Makeeva), a fiercely indepen

This was the first production I have ever seen of Sweeney Todd where there has been an absence of blood. Yes, there was the high-pitched orchestral whistle-scream at every grisly murder and an image splashed on a window but no actual fake red blood anywhere. Even at the finale when Tobias cuts Sweeney’s throat there was nothing oozing from the slash. It was one of the features of Mary Quade’s highly-stylised production of Stephen Sondheim’s take on the 1840s melodrama of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Red Giraffe Theatre have only been established in Mackay since 2015, but they are already renowned for delivering first class productions and that was exactly what the audience of their latest cabaret act, It Takes Two: Songs In The Key Of Giraffe got for their ticket money this weekend - class all the way.
Anybody can put on a show, serve up a beer along with it and call it Cabaret, but to a more discerning audience, a lot more elements need to be present for a production to be defined as being a true cabaret experience and producers of Red Giraffe Theatre, Joel Bow and T