Review: Josh Thomas In Things That I Have Said Before

Josh Thomas in Things That I Have Said Before
Comedy Store, Moore Park
Until 7 November
Tickets $15-22
Bookings (02) 9357 1419
Critic’s Rating 6/10


As published in the Sun Herald

Living most of my life in darkened theatres, I didn’t know who Josh Thomas was when my editor told me to go and review him. He’s the guy from that generation show, my friend said. I still didn’t recognise him, which probably says more about me than him.

The first thing you notice as he shuffles on to the stage is how young he is. And he knows how to joke about it. In fact, the majority of his skit is about how young he looks.

There’s the jokes about facial hair, how he looks like an adult baby (or Ellen DeGeneres) and his nervousness around women.

It’s all par for the course and it makes girls between the ages of 16 and 22 giggle.

That’s until he takes the lid off and he lets fly with his more R-rated material – and then suddenly older cackles come from the crowd and the teenagers are left behind.

Blending coriander, marzipan and abortion is just the start of it. And he always acts relieved when the dirty jokes get a response. But he’s always got that glint in his eye that gives you the suspicion the he knows he’s funny. And he is.

Review: Taming of the Shrew

Taming of the Shrew
Sydney Opera House
Until 21 November
Tickets $30-60
Bookings (02) 9250 7777
Critic’s Rating 4/10

As published in the Sun Herald


It’s amazing that a production starring some of this country’s finest female stage performers could be so badly conceived. On the page, the idea of having an all-female cast performing in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, looks interesting.

It certainly has sex appeal. The misogynist Petruchio (Jeanette Cronin) who has been historically played by swaggering Don Juan leads (Kenneth Branagh, Peter O’Toole, Michael Siberry to name a few) tames the wild and disobedient Kate (Lotte St Clair).

It may have worked if the women were mocking the male species through caricatures but instead director Marion Potts hurtles head first like a train-wreck into a mock-lesbian world that is confused, predictable and unwittingly sacrifices the beauty of the text.

Setting the action in an atypical leagues club Chinese Restaurant doesn’t help. It certainly looks good as the lights go down, with its glitter balls and karaoke machine, but as soon as the characters enter the space in their mixture of '30s, '70s, '80s, '90s and contemporary clothing, you start to feel dizzy, unable to give the setting any context or meaning.

In one corner you have Kate’s wealthy father Baptista (Sandy Gore) playing cards and acting like a Sopranos mafia boss next to her slightly goofy mob. In the other corner you have a Sly Fox Hotel/The L Word love tryst of the butch Lucentio (Luisa Hastings Edge) and Tranio (Ksenja Logos) wooing their way to Baptista’s beautiful daughter Bianca (Emily Rose Brennan).

Sadly, this all-female Shrew is full of colour and possibilities but in the end it’s not thought through. The contemporary parallels shift so much that neither the actors nor the audience can focus in on what is actually being said. A perfect example of this is in the final scene when Kate delivers one of the most beautiful Shakespearean passages written for a female character to be then upstaged by Bianca for a cheap laugh.

All the performers fulfil their roles as well as they can, although some of the younger performers could learn some stillness from their older colleagues. The stand-out among them is Judy Farr, who steals the show with barely a line to say as the widow and Biondello.

Bell Shakespeare is a unique company in that they tour extensively through the country and caters to both schools and the general public. Creatively this can be a blessing – at other times it can be a burden as production teams try to find "contemporary parallels" to make Shakespeare more palatable. This Shrew is one of the latter.

Review: The Ruby Sunrise

The Ruby Sunrise
Ensemble Theatre
Until 14 November
Tickets $23-63
Bookings (02) 9929 0644
Critic’s Rating 5/10

As published in the Sun Herald


The character of Ruby Sunrise is as American as apple pie. A Midwest teenager, she dreams of a better world and thinks her new idea of a Tele(from the Greek) vision (from the Latin) will stop wars, educate and bring humanity closer together.

Set in the 1920s, at a time when television science was racing ahead in leaps and bounds, it’s a world away from daytime soaps and episodes of Bridezilla.

When Ruby’s daughter, Lulu (Catherine McGraffin), gives the idea to writer Tad Rose (Glenn Hazeldine) 30 years later at the height of Joseph McCarthy’s anti-Communist investigations, they think they have a hit on their hands with a story that is an optimistic tale of determination that has a female heroine.

But censorship rears its ugly heads and the story gets diluted and changed along the way.

For The Ruby Sunrise to have its full impact, the stakes need to be high and the opening scenes set in the '20s need to have a gravity and realism that will drive the rest of the play.

Unfortunately this doesn't happen. It would have been a perfect opportunity to explore audiovisual styles but instead, director Sandra Bates has opted for a realist production, where even the make-up and costumes look like they’re straight out of a community theatre wardrobe.

Review: Silver

Silver
Belvoir Street Theatre
Until 25 October
Tickets $10-29
Bookings (02) 9699 3444
Critic’s Rating 6/10

As published in the Sun Herald


Welcome to the land of nightmares and dreams, where the imagination of a child could be illusion or reality. Silver, written and performed by Matthew Whittet, is a first-person account of a journey of a little girl who finds her way miles from home.

With the horror of Blair Witch Project and the charm of a European fairytale, there’s a great simplicity at work here in this production; but to my mind is over-simplified.

Theatre is the best place in the world to tell and hear a story but Silver would be just as riveting if it were read off the page.

Director Ben Winspear has split the already small downstairs space and has Whittet sitting plainly on a chair in front of only about 40 people.

There’s some novelty in the fact that Whittet is a charmingly good male performer telling the story of a girl's life but that’s about where it ends. Nick Schlieper does a good job with the lighting to create a mood at the beginning but it isn’t followed through with anything physical to carry that further.

If however, you’re up for a good romping tale with no bells or whistles, then this is the ideal production.

After all these years it's still Liza with a zing

Regal yet humble, the Cabaret star still has energy and talent to enthral her fans, writes Nicholas Pickard.

FIRST REVIEW

It's the eyes and the giggle that do it for you - that innocent glare that Liza Minnelli flashes at you to give you a window into the career of a musical star who has been honing her talent for more than 50 years.

The voice has become shaky and the body isn't as agile as it once was but this is Liza - with a Z - and no one in the packed 2000-seat auditorium at the Sydney Opera House was complaining.

When she appeared dressed in her white sequins it felt like the roof of the Opera House was about to lift off. Everyone rose to their feet for the star who first came to Australia with her then husband, Peter Allen, 42 years ago.


Full Review Published HERE.

Review: Peter Grimes

Peter Grimes
Sydney Opera House
Until 30 October
Tickets $68-256
Bookings (02) 9250 7777
Critic’s Rating 8/10

As published in the Sun Herald


There’s nothing quite like a lynch mob to get the dramatic pulses racing. As with football, viewers like siding with the under-dog, hoping that the mob gets punished for succumbing to group mentality.

Peter Grimes is a reclusive subsistence fisherman living in an isolated sea port on the English coastline. Different from the rest the community, in a Boo Radley type of way, he is viewed with suspicion when his young apprentice is found dead after a fishing expedition.

Writing at the height of World War II, the composer Benjamin Britten and his partner, Peter Pears, returned to England from the US with the idea to turn an 1810 poem by George Crabbe into opera.

With librettist Montagu Slater, Britten creates a world much like John Steinbeck’s Of Mice And Men where Grimes is objectified and beaten down like Lennie Small by a ruthless community.

Director Neil Armfield, along with designers Ralph Myers, Tess Schofield and Damien Cooper, has set the action in a community hall that can quickly turn from a warm hub of social interaction to a place more daunting and cold.

A coronial inquest clears Grimes of the incident but the community is distrustful and gossip escalates when he is given another apprentice. His love-interest, Ellen Orford, is one of his only friends but she succumbs to communal gossip.

Britten’s Peter Grimes is a haunting modernist composition that won’t be everyone’s cup of tea and Armfield honours the score’s meditative qualities with simple stagecraft and a lighting design that evokes the horizontal shadows of an Alfred Hitchcock film.

More often than not it is just the solitary figure of George Crabbe (played by Peter Carroll), the original author of the poem, who strolls through the hall in between scenes and moves chairs, creating a theatre within a theatre.

Stuart Skelton is born to play the role of Grimes, his tenor voice opening with such beauty and clarity in the opening scene, only to descend into the more chaotic expressionism as the mob chases him from his hut. Susan Gritton, as the simple Ellen Orford is beautiful and Peter Coleman-Wright, as Grimes’s only other friend, Captain Balstrode is grittily perfect.

Peter Grimes is a harsh world that came out of the destruction of a war that tore the world apart. Its programming post-September 11 is inspired and shows that the mob mentality is as prolific as ever.

Review: Missing The Bus To David Jones

Missing The Bus To David Jones
Performance Space, Carriageworks
Until 24 October
Tickets $15-30
Bookings 1300 723 038
Critic’s Rating 9/10

As published in the Sun Herald


“He who dies with the most toys wins” was last week reported to be one of James Packer’s sayings. For the rest of us, the end of life is a little more than accumulated possessions and will most likely involve a nursing home.

These homes might be considered the unlikeliest place to find celebration or solace but in Carlos Gomes’s production, they contain the meaning to life.

Six characters enter an open space with simple furnishings, a television, a cushioned floor and soft music. Dressed in white they strip down and put on elderly clothes and take up residence. It’s just one of many beautiful moments as you witness the proximity of age and your own mortality.

Gomes has created an ensemble piece with movement, story-telling and short scenes after the group completed six months of observation and interviews in nursing homes across Sydney.

The result is one of the most celebratory pieces of theatre you will encounter. From the intricate hand movements of the performers to the sadness and humility of the stories, it will have you laugh and reflect.

John Donne said death was a slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men and this production shows why. This is a wonderful show. Take an elderly relative.

Review: Wicked

As published in yesterday's Sun Herald.

Wicked
Capitol Theatre
Until 22 November
Tickets $95.90-129.90
Bookings 1300 723 038
Critic’s Rating 8/10


Believe or not, there was life in the Land of Oz before Dorothy and Toto crash-landed, uninvited, and squashed the poor Wicked Witch of the East, stealing her lovely red shoes and running off down the yellow brick road.

In Wicked, a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, we return to the college days of room-mates Elphaba (Amanda Harrison) and Glinda (Lucy Durack).

Elphaba, born with a green colour disfigurement, has been shunned her whole life by her cruel father, the Governor of Munchkinland, in favour of her wheel-chair bound sister Nessarose (Penny McNamee).

Glinda, on the other hand, in her perky little way, can’t seem to put a foot wrong and trots around the campus gaining a reputation for being just "so good".

In the spirit of Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead - the play that turned Shakespeare’s Hamlet on its head by spinning around the perspective of the main characters - Wicked by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, makes Dorothy and Toto a mere side story.

The real drama is how Glinda and Elphaba turned into the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West in a world that’s part Harry Potter part Witches of Eastwick.

It’s a beautifully tragic take on the old story with finely realised female leads that could explain Wicked’s mass appeal to young women around the world. Indeed, it is a musical strongest for the storyline and the stunning story-book imagery created by the fantastic set design, rather than the music, which only rarely gets beyond the appeal of a television score.

Durack is delightfully hilarious as she flutters around the stage, delivering one-liners like spells from a wand. But Harrison, like a lot of the ensemble, seemed to be keeping something in reserve, holding back on the big numbers for what could be an extensive Sydney season.

Durack and Harrison are supported by a solid ensemble of principles including the excellent James Smith, the wonderfully smoky Maggie Kirkpatrick and Bert Newtown as the Wizard who is only a cigar short of being the image of Winston Churchill. Highly recommended.


*The Sun-Herald reviewed a preview performance of this Sydney season.

Review: One long night in the land of Nod

As published in the Sun Herald.

One long night in the land of Nod
Old Fitzroy Theatre
Until 3 October
Tickets $17-35
Bookings 1300 438 849
Critic’s Rating 8/10


A fly screen door slams shut on the back room of an old fibro shack in the middle of a drought-ridden farm. Aaron (Patrick Graham) sits in a half-light, drinking beer and holding a rifle.

His brother Kane (Chris Pitman) arrives in the middle of the night with news that his parents aren’t doing to well and Aaron is badly affected by the isolation of the farm.

Like Cain and Abel, the two are set against each other with jealousy, rivalry and desperation on a land beset by bad harvests. It’s a bleak outback Australia that may as well be the world of Genesis.

This production, directed by Iain Sinclair, pitches together two exceptional actors who are always a joy to watch. Graham is eerily unpredictable as Aaron and Pitman creates a Kane not unlike Atlas, with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

One long night in the land of Nod is the best new piece of Australian writing to hit Sydney’s independent stages all year.

Plywright Duncan Graham (who had another success with Ollie and the Minotaur earlier this year) has an ear for dialogue that transcends gender, space and time as he creates a mood that is hypnotic right up until the play’s haunting end. A must-see.

Review: A Streetcar Named Desire

I filed my review for A Streetcar Named Desire on the night of the premiere live from the foyer.

It was published on the Sydney Morning Herald website and can be found HERE.

There's something to be said for filing for immediate publication. Maybe with our new media capabilities, it might be long-lost theatre reviewing practice that could get resurrected.

Review: Gethsemane

Published in the Sun Herald

Gethsemane
Belvoir Street Theatre
Until 18 October
Tickets $34-56
Bookings (02) 9699 3444
Critic’s Rating 6/10


Whether it’s John Della Bosca, Milton Orkopulous or Matt Brown, political affairs in NSW make this British play about power, politics, party donors, sex and drug scandals all a bit polite.

This is a major problem for Gethsemane, a new play from British playwright David Hare that rails against another failing government - Britain’s New Labour.

Even though Hare stated the play was ‘pure fiction’ when it premiered in London last year, it clearly targets Prime Minister Tony Blair and vilifies his government for Iraq, Afghanistan and everything else that’s wrong with the world and British society.

The title refers to the night of the Last Supper when Jesus is tempted to not carry through with the responsibility he has been given by God. It’s a moral quandary as Hare asks: how far have our governments, elected representatives and society strayed from our own responsibilities?

Prime Minister Alec Beasley (Rhys Muldoon) is running a government sliding down the polls. But he seems to be more occupied raising funds for the party with bovver boy Otto Fallon (Hugh Keays- Byrne) and his spooky sidekick (Charlie Garber) than looking after his increasingly dysfunctional country.

Meanwhile, Beasley’s Home Secretary, Meredith Guest (Sarah Peirse), is trying to contain a potentially explosive situation involving her teenage daughter Suzette (Emily Barclay), a tabloid journalist (Dan Wyllie), drugs and a sex scandal.

Seeking the help of her advisor (Paula Arundell) and Suzette’s old teacher-turned busker (Claire Jones), Guest attempts to contain the situation, stay in politics and save her daughter.

This new production directed by Neil Armfield at first appears quite timely, but the depth to Hare’s characters (along with some far-fetched notions around the influence of Suzette’s teacher in a scene with Fallon) makes it fall short of the real-life melodrama we already have going on around us.

On a set by Brian Thomsen that looks strikingly similar to My Zinc Bed - another Hare play he designed for Armfield - the performers are all faultless. Peirse has that British neurotic quality of a minister battling to be a mother and Garber brings a Transylvanian quality that injects some life into a play that is intelligent but not as witty as it first appears.

With a tone that rarely gets above a royal family Christmas message it’s all too genteel and pales in comparison with the bearpit of the NSW parliament.

Review: Fire - A Retrospective

Published in the Sun Herald

Fire: A Retrospective
Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House
Until 29 September
Tickets $55-65
Bookings (02) 9250 7777
Critic’s Rating 7/10


This retrospective of Bangarra Dance Theatre’s 20-year-history feels as much like a family celebration as it does a reflection on one of this country’s finest contemporary arts groups.

Just like Bangarra's humble beginnings, this production opens with a cocoon, suspended in the air, from which a solitary dancer emerges head first and drops to the floor.

With Stephen Page as choreographer and Frances Ring and Bernadette Walong-Sene as co-choreographers, the three have brought together a showcase of the company’s prolific work over the decades.

What is most moving about their work is the way it blends the traditional and sacred so tightly with contemporary styles and themes.

Whether it’s the beautiful Blankets from Rations (2002), Ochres (1995) or the traditional Torres Strait dances towards the end of the showcase, Bangarra has a timeless quality that is made evident by the continuing power of their works.

There are also moments of great sadness as the company pays tribute to Page’s brother Russell who passed away in 2002 with an earth dance.

There are some problems when the multimedia elements of sound and visuals dominate the work on the stage, but with costumes by Jennifer Irwin, set design by Peter England and a brilliant sound design by David Page and Steve Francis, the production maintains its energy and honours the work of this most important Australian dance company.

Review: This Kind of Ruckus

Published in the Sun-Herald

This Kind of Ruckus
Performance Space at CarriageWorks
Until 12 September
Tickets $15-30
Bookings 1300 723 038
Critic’s Rating 7/10


Whether it's Rugby League players in bouts of group sex, violence broadcast on plasma screens in bars across the city or a group of teenagers fighting in the street, there’s something disturbing about the circle of violence within our community and the way they all relate.

Theatre company Version 1.0’s most recent shows exposed various Howard Government stains using primary sources as material: the Australian Wheat Board inquiry, weapons of mass destruction and Guantanamo Bay to name just a few.

Now they turn their hand to the issue of violence within our society. Performers Danielle Antaki, Arky Michael, Jane Phegan, Kym Vercoe and David Williams open the production playing caricatures of cheerleaders and make the Rugby League industry a clear target.

With their unique didactic style that uses multimedia (Sean Bacon and Gail Priest) with physical movement, the group have created a show full of striking imagery that creates a link between the reasons, excuses and consequences of violence.

[But the drama floats off and tries to incorporate other elements of social violence when the production may have been better served with a direct attack on the football code and the responsibility it bares.]

This Kind of Ruckus may not be as powerful as their previous work, but it still carries an important message that reminds us that violence affects us all.

Review: Best of British

As published in the Sun Herald

Best of British
The Comedy Store, Moore Park
Until 29 August
Tickets $10-30
Bookings (02) 9357 1419
Critic’s Rating 7/10


There must be a school of comedy somewhere in the British Isles with the motto: ‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good story’.

English comedians have this innate ability to blend true stories with blatant exaggeration in a dry manner.

If such a school exists then both Jeff Green (right) and Eddy Brimson would have been at the top of the class.

Brimson could be the type of person you suddenly find sitting on a bar stool next to you. With a physical presence larger than his modest frame, he’s exudes an energy as he talks about the antics he gets up to at social events (don’t fall asleep at anything he’s attending).

Green is the quieter of the two as he expresses amazement at the world around him in style similar to Tony Robinson, who played Baldrick in Blackadder.

With breathy rambles, he draws you in to look at something closely, luring you into a sense of comfort, before he electrifies you with a cutting observation dripping in sarcasm.

It’s that sense of surprise that makes the British so funny and a quality Brimson and Green thrive.

Review: Once And For All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up And Listen

As published in the Sun Herald.


Once And For All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up And Listen
Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company
Until 29 August
Tickets $30-50
Bookings (02) 9250 1777
Critic’s Rating 8/10


The days when children were seen and not heard died about the same time as the baby boomers started to have their first offspring.

Now their grandchildren are in their teens and this new generation will not only be heard but will be heard loudly.

The brazenly titled Once And For All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up And Listen, from the Belgian group Ontroerend Goed, proves that what seems like teenage anarchy is quite simply ritual – a ritual we have all experienced. Maybe it’s a ritual we wish we could have over again.

Entering the space to the sound of the 13 performers who are hidden behind the walls screaming and banging memories come flooding back of mad bus rides home in the back seat and playground antics.

To the guitar riffs of the Velvet Underground, the teenagers enter the stage in a frenzy of pubescent energy, filling the space with youthful celebration.

With balloons, plastic bags, bottles of water, cups, string, roller skates and other everyday props, a scene is created that may seem chaotic but is orchestrated with absolute precision by director Alexander Devriendt. What the group shows is less about what happens but is more about flourishes in mood and tone as you have moments of love, affection, playfulness, naivety, strength, leadership, loneliness and belonging.

A bell then goes off, the teenagers retreat and the scene is once again played out and your eyes are drawn to any action on stage you may have missed earlier.

Then it is re-interpreted again in a multitude of parades, giving you the time to appreciate how you can see in each young face the child being left behind and the adult coming into focus. Ultimately, however, you start to see a reflection of yourself in days gone past.

But this isn’t just teenage kicks. In a scene more Radiohead than Jose Gonzalez, the ensemble dive deep into the fear of drugs, violence and addiction. It’s a fear for ourselves, for them and, by default, our community. The play then returns to the youthful abandon it began with.

Ignore the Board of Studies and their tired syllabus because this is the type of theatre that every student and teacher in Sydney should be made to go and see.

For those in their teens, as much as for those who are older, it is a delicate and beautiful offering that captures the spring awakening of the next generation and reminds us what it was like to be young.

Review: The Promise

The Promise
Belvoir Street Theatre
Until 23 August
Tickets $34-56
Bookings (02) 9699 3444
Critic’s Rating 7/10


Famously, the first English language production of The Promise was performed in 1967, starring Judi Dench, Ian McKellen and Ian McShane. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more simmering trio to act out the lives of a love triangle set over twenty years in Soviet Russia.

Luckily, Simon Stone, in his mainstage directorial debut for Company B, has found another beautiful trio to tell the story of three teenage orphans who find themselves together during the 1942 siege of Leningrad.

In an empty apartment above a city surrounded by Nazis, Lika (Alison Bell) and Marat (Ewen Leslie) are with little food and hardly any warmth.

At 16, Lika has learnt life the hard way, waiting for her neighbours to starve to death before she steals their furniture to burn. But she has a love of Tolstoy and Tergenev and an innocent beauty with a smile that always speaks surprise.

Marat, on the other hand, is a little older, chiding her for the brutal way she waits for the death of those around her. But he is a chronic liar with a quick temper behind his dark eyes.

Their isolation together turns into passion and on Lika’s birthday they suddenly find themselves locking lips and falling headlong into love.

The final ingredient for the ménage a trois comes in the form of Leonidik (Chris Ryan), who enters and comes crashing to the floor overcome by fatigue and starvation. Always talking in the third person, he is a writer afraid of being read.

As the three become reliant on one another for companionship, this love story looks at the many ways we all have a need to love and be loved – despite what’s happening outside our own four walls.

Played out over three acts, The Promise takes us from the siege to the end of the war, when Leonidik and Marat return from army service and force Lika to choose between the two lovers. Act three hurls us forward to 1959, when the three are brought back together again and decisions about their future have to be made once more.

Quite simply, the language of this play by Russian writer Alexei Arbuzov, in a new adaptation by Nick Dear, is stunningly beautiful.

The director has delivered, on a bear revolving stage, a even-handed interpretation with some stunning photo-like images at the end of each scene that help find the intimacy and romance of these alluring characters.

However it’s a production that doesn’t quite simmer enough and hasn’t quite got its head around the brooding passion of these three very Russian characters. But give it a couple of weeks and that passion could very well simmer right to the top.

Review: The Little Dog Laughed

The Little Dog Laughed
Ensemble Theatre
Until 15 August
Tickets $23-47
Bookings (02) 9929 064
Critic’s Rating 7/10


Welcome to Hollywood, where life is short, smiles are fabricated and reputation is everything.

Diane (Alexandra Flower) is a hard-nosed, ambitious and straight-talking agent determined to see her client, Mitchell Green (James Millar) join the celebrity juggernaut.

Mitchell is a rising star with a future carved out playing boy-next-door roles. He’s blonde, neat and has pearly white teeth. The problem, however, is he has this "recurring case of homosexuality".

Diane, a lesbian, understands the only people who make the world turn around are white, middle-upper-class straight men. This is, after all, Hollywood - a place where "if a perceived straight actor portrays a gay role in a feature film, it's noble, it's a stretch. It's the pretty lady putting on a fake nose and winning an Oscar."

Mitchell, for the sake of his career, can’t afford to stray from the conservative pack. But Mitchell is quickly falling for Alex (Lindsay Farris), a cute young rent-boy he hires one night after a day of wheeling and dealing in New York.

Alex, who’s in a casual relationship with Ellen (Alexa Ashton), becomes smitten by the boy-next-door actor. Ellen, on the other hand is falling in love with Alex, starts to feel him emotionally detaching himself as he spends more time with Mitchell.

The love triangle is certain to get messy and Mitchell’s life starts to turn sour as his heart begins to lead his head. That’s until Diane walks back into his life to ‘fix’ the problem.

This is a toned-down and slightly edited version of the original script by US playwright Douglas Carter Beane but The Little Dog Laughed is one of the most refreshing programming decisions the Ensemble Theatre has made in quite a while.

For the audience, including the man who sat down to eat his curry, rice and naan during the first ten minutes of the show (yes, really), this is a captivating and bittersweet comedy that is sharp, insightful and beautifully performed.

Fowler is perfectly cast as the agent and has just the right amount of self-deprecating irony to have the audience in raptures. Millar and Farris are lovingly portrayed as the star-crossed gay lovers and newcomer Ashton is wonderfully droll and has the timing of a Swiss clock.

Directed by Andrew Doyle, this is an honest production that doesn’t ponder and lets the laughs flow as easily as a Hollywood gossip column.

The Right of Reply

A playwright in Sydney has taken revenge on a theatre critic after a negative review was printed in the Sydney Morning Herald last week.

Mick Barnes, the writer of Unit 46, wrote an opinion piece printed in the same newspaper today calling on critic Jason Blake to 'sort out his melancholia'.

Barnes, a former critic himself, quotes from the book Rotten Reviews that says that reviewers "are a poor lot indeed, ill-paid, despised all around, and often wrong, but they have their pride."

Or more amusingly he also quotes Kurt Vonnegut who says they are "like a person who has just put on full armour and attacked a hot fudge sundae or banana split."

The play which opened at the Factory Theatre in Marrickville is due to travel to the Edinburgh Fringe later this year after a rather successful run in Adelaide recently where it received positive responses.

Reviewers in Sydney have been a little less accommodating than their South Australian counterparts.

Diana Simmonds at Stage Noise called it "a horrid little piece and it's a mystery why anyone would want to do it; and a bigger mystery that it was apparently "the hit show of the Adelaide Fringe". Perhaps it was a crappy Adelaide Fringe year."

Helen Barry at Australian Stage said the play "is weighed down by ponderous slabs of dialogue which see the actors wrestling with intense soliloquies full of references to Greek mythology and lofty dead poets."

And my review printed in the Sun Herald, for what it's worth, is below. But you can make up your own minds. It closes at the end of the week.


Unit 46
Factory Theatre
Until 19 July
Tickets $25-28
Bookings (02) 9550 3666
Critic’s Rating 4/10

I have a friend who lives with extremely annoying neighbours in the inner west.

Noise complaints, barking dogs and bad taste in music is just the half of it. My friend has her revenge on them by stealing their wireless internet.

Whether or not it was the intention of playwright Mick Barnes, the blessing of Unit 46 is that you only have to spend 80 minutes with two of the most annoying neighbours you could come across.

Tim (Leof Kingsford-Smith) lives in the apartment above Diane (Lucy Miller) in a block of 56 units. Each night, they spend their time at home reflecting on their lonely existence and thinking of ways to annoy one another.

Tim, an angry misogynistic ex-public servant won’t put out the garbage. Diane, a chardonnay swilling English teacher living below, bangs the ceiling with every movement Tim makes.

The two actors are both fine performers who don’t miss a beat and manage to make their characters so aggravating the play becomes unbearable to sit through. Neither of them has any redeeming character traits, so you can’t help but feel that the playwright must have been in a very dark place at the time of writing.

Both are painfully neurotic and unremorsefully self centred that it makes whatever living conditions my friend is suffering practically angelic.

I’ll be recommending this show to her but, then again, she already has annoying neighbours.

Review: Poor Boy

Poor Boy
Sydney Theatre
Until 1 August
Tickets $30-80
Bookings (02) 9250 1777
Critic’s Rating 5/10


Basing a play around the songwriting beauty of Tim Finn in his Split Enz days is as much inspiring as it is daunting.

Playwright Matt Cameron has taken the challenge in an attempt to dramatise both the famous and not-so-famous ballads that will be familiar to an entire generation of Australians and New Zealanders who remember the musical glory days of the '80s.

With a stereotypical Australian family setting, we are greeted by a backyard under a vast sky. There’s a clothes line, unruly weeds, a swing and a two-storey fibro-like house.

Sol (Greg Stone) and Viv (Linda Cropper) are the parents of Jeremy (Nicholas Bakopoulos-Cooke) a seven-year-old who has just been hit by a car at zebra crossing. On waking, he denies they are his family and seeks out the moribund home of Ruth (Sarah Pierse) who seven years previously lost her son Danny (Matthew Newton) in a horrific car accident.

In a world where The Sixth Sense meets Birth, Jeremy comes from the other side, reincarnated as the character of Danny and scaring the life out of Ruth, her son Miles (Matt Dyktynski) and her grieving daughter-in-law Clare (Abi Tucker).

Jeremy knows the ins and outs of the family’s history – where they went for family holidays, what the name of his favourite zebra mask was and the intimate life Danny had with Clare.

It’s a fantastical premise to frame Finn's beautiful songs but that’s about as far as it goes.

Fitting a set design, characters and a plot line onto an array of songs written nearly 30 years ago creates a world that lacks believability. This is particularly apparent during scenes between the two mothers, where little time is afforded to the angst Viv faces in letting her seven-year-old boy go to another family.

But if you are a fan of Finn and Split Enz, this will be an interesting expedition. Under the musical direction of Ian McDonald, the songs are much more raw than their recorded variations and have been theatrically ramped up, softening their more folksy tones.

It’s when the actors gather together in chorus, belting out the tunes that you can see why the idea to frame them into a play came about. But the direction and design seek a nostalgia that has no anchor and dramatically it never manages to reach the height of Finn’s wonderful score.

Review: Ollie and the Minotaur

Ollie and the Minotaur
Downstairs Belvoir
Until 3 May
Tickets $23-29
Bookings (02) 9699 3444
Critic’s Rating 7/10


Ollie and the Minotaur opens like a fresh sea breeze of familiarity as old school friends Thea, Bec and Carla come together for a coastal weekend reunion.

It’s the type of weekend based on simple pleasures we’ve all had – lie in the sun, get drunk, relive your youth and maybe listen to Gen X anthems like Pump Up The Jam for good measure.

The dominant Thea (Wendy Bos) and the more retiring Bec (Sarah Brokensha) arrive first and from the first moments a pecking order of their status is established. Advertising executive Carla (Adriana Bonaccurso) is not far behind them as she quickly dons her sunnies and starts ordering young Bec to fix her a gin and tonic.

From Shakespeare to Chekhov, the dramatic potential and tension provided by three women on stage has been used by the greats of the stage.

Ollie and the Minotaur is no different. The three talk about boys, dance and yell madly but the innocence of their get-together unravels as a dark secret between the three opens a Pandora’s box.

It’s here that the dramatic tension lifts off and takes what could be a very ordinary plot into a complicated and more sinister world.

Working with three quite wonderful performers, playwright Duncan Graham has grabbed that tradition and developed a story that is engrossing and, when it reaches the end, very disturbing.

Director Sarah John allows the story to be told with a respectful simplicity and allows the gifted actors to deliver what is a sharp, realistic and well-crafted new Australian play.