Reviews

Black Swan’s latest work, a co-production with Marrugeku, is a striking and emotive piece of dance-theatre. Set inside “the prison of the Australian mind” it is the story of government sanctioned abuse of Aboriginal and refugee people in Australian prisons and immigration centres.

Provocative and powerful, it is designed by Visual Artist Abdul-Rahman Abdullah with a striking, imposing, and institutional set. Damien Cooper makes strong choices with the lighting design – which is both visually impressive and highly emotive. 

The Enchanted Pig is performed by WAAPA Classical Voice Students and accompanied by Musical Director Tommaso Pollio, in WAAPA’s concert venue, the Richard Gill Auditorium. While officially a “semi-staged” production, this is a show that is full of life, with some clever staging, and is well acted, performed with commitment and beautifully sung.

Maestro and ever-popular conductor and host Guy Noble was in full flood for this performance, despite his flu, conducting his own choice of works as a final gesture to this farewell concert. After eighteen years at the helm of the Music on Sundays concerts, it was indeed a memorable occasion for all concerned, orchestra and audience alike, and befitting that he had the opportunity to bring to life a selection of his 'desert-island-discs' together with his family of musicians, the QSO.

We are fortunate to live in a society where you can poke fun at our major religion and for it to be a non-issue. Indeed, Jesus himself instructed his followers to turn the other cheek when they are subjected to an insult.

The added benefit of this approach is that it denies oxygen to the work. Monty Python’s The Life of Brian enjoyed a surge of popularity when Christian groups called for a boycott. Decades later the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints wisely ignored the musical The Book of Mormon.