Arts
Yarra River novel makes a splash
A Huckleberry Finn-style novel about two boys and their adventures on the Yarra River has won a Victorian Premier’s Literary Award
A solid emotional punch
CONTEMPORARY ballets are a fixture of The Australian Ballet’s seasons but rarely one as complex and intricate as Nijinsky, writes reviewer Stephanie Glickman.
Girl, interrupted
SISTERS Grimm can make you laugh, cringe, cheer and whinge all during the one production, and their latest show Lilith: The Jungle Girl, is no exception, writes reviewer Kate Herbert.
How you doin’?
First Date is a is a buoyant and zesty musical with plenty of laughs at the expense of the two first daters, writes reviewer Kate Herbert.
How winning an Aria changes lives
OPERA singers will tell you there’s nothing quite like fronting 2000 people at Hamer Hall and singing your heart out in a Herald Sun Aria final.
Review: Bangarra OUR land people stories
The well-established indigenous dance company Bangarra continues to explore different ways to communicate cultural material to a wide public in its latest production OUR land people stories, writes reviewer Stephanie Glickman.
Bohemian rhapsody
IF YOU’VE ever sung along tunelessly to We Are The Champions or played air guitar to Bohemian Rhapsody, you’ll find plenty to love in Ben Elton and Queen’s musical, We Will Rock You, writes reviewer Kate Herbert.
An engaging digital dance
Digital media and dance can be tentative bedfellows but Pixel is as close as it gets to a duet of the forms, writes reviewer Stephanie Glickman
Missed opportunity
Bertolt Brecht was one of the great playwrights of the 20th century but this production of his 1941 play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui fails to do justice to Brecht’s courageous, political satire, writes reviewer Kate Herbert
Social satire high on shock value
Eddie Perfect’s The Beast is a deeply flawed play that transgresses key dramatic and theatrical rules but, despite its faults, it is strangely entertaining and oddly transfixing in a ‘just-can’t-look-away’ way, writes reviewer Kate Herbert
A world tour of laughs
Toby Hulse’s stage adaptation of Jules Verne’s Around The World In 80 Days is a spirited and diverting two-hour romp, writes Kate Herbert.
What’s for dinner?
Disgraced is a challenging and confrontational play that will leave you with plenty to debate in the car on the way home, writes reviewer Kate Herbert
Not quite on fire
A mid ‘90s collaboration between musician Tim Finn and one of Australia’s most successful poets Dorothy Porter has spawned the music and lyrics for a series of impassioned songs in a new stage show, writes Kate Herbert.
A comical romp
MASH up an American backstage musical with an Agatha Christie-style murder plot and an idiosyncratic detective and you get John Kander and Fred Ebb’s award-winning show Curtains, writes reviewer Kate Herbert
Beyond the big top
Il Ritorno uses Monteverdi’s opera Il Ritorno D’Ulisse in Patria as the crux of a live, multi-faceted vocal and musical score, writes reviewer Stephanie Glickman.
A sense of history
Many may have thought Melbourne Opera was biting off more than it could chew in tackling a fully-staged version of Tannhauser. But this grand opera met its expectations, writes reviewer Paul Selar.
Smiles and sadness in song
Victorian Opera’s ingenious new production Laughter and Tears uses circus arts to aid and illuminate one of Italian opera’s great torrid stories, writes Paul Selar
The Melbourne man behind Kanye’s moves
WHEN you get a call out of the blue to see if you’re interested in choreographing Kanye West’s latest video clip, it’s fair to say you’ve made it.
Burn the floor
IT MAY take two to tango, but it takes 15 to Tango Fire. German Cornejo’s company features five couples and mixes playful and intimate with showy and broad, writes reviewer Stephanie Glickman
Potter hotter than Fifty Shades
STEP aside, Fifty Shades. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the fastest-selling book for almost a decade.
Battle of books: Griffiths vs Potter
AUTHOR Andy Griffiths and illustrator Terry Denton have cast a spell over kids with their Treehouse series, but is their latest book powerful enough to outsell J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and The Cursed Child?
Our boys’ big adventure
Lord of the Flies, a UK dance theatre sensation, descends on Melbourne next April in a stirring all-male production whose onstage tribes will comprise professional dancers and untested talent.
Modern take on historic tale
Edward II is sometimes alarming and intense but it is also a diverting interpretation of this wayward King and his decadent reign, writes reviewer Kate Herbert
Monkey business
IF YOU think a bloke playing a primate could not be funny and poignant, think again, because Rory Kelly’s portrayal of Trevor, the former television star chimpanzee, is hilarious, moving and dangerous, writes reviewer Kate Herbert
Laughing all night long
Four star review: if you don’t mind being regaled with tales of hanging with Jack Nicholson and being Muhammad Ali’s “little brother”, then an evening with Billy Crystal is a joyous one indeed, writes Patrick Horan.
A tale of three Maggies
This very physical stage adaptation of George Eliot’s 19th century novel The Mill On The Floss partners dialogue with abstracted movement to illuminate characters and relationships, writes reviewer Kate Herbert
New Harry Potter sets sales record
FANS have wasted no time rushing out to get a copy of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, making it this year’s fastest selling book.
Is the new Harry Potter any good?
IT’S one of the most longed-for publications in years. But is the new Harry Potter script as magical as the rest of the beloved books?
