![Alice Fraser's Empire is on at the 2017 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.](/web/20170411220621im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/i/x/m/s/image.related.wideLandscape.300x169.gvivy5.png/1491897794520.jpg)
Melbourne Comedy Festival 2017 review: Great material goes to waste in Alice Fraser's Empire
An ambitious show with plenty of interesting material never quite gets to the point of very funny.
An ambitious show with plenty of interesting material never quite gets to the point of very funny.
The veteran comic has adopted a more holistic approach to life, and the pace of his stand-up has slowed too.
The notoriously belligerent comedian risked ruining his own show when he let fly at a patron.
Shakespeare's tradie-thespians and rubber chickens shine in this imperishable backstage comedy.
Kate Mulvany's powerfully dark, dangerous villain is the most memorable element of this production and makes it well worth seeing.
Jonathan Biggins finds blending serious issues with witty lines a tricky balancing act
In the Australian Ballet's latest triple bill, Faster, diversity is missing.
''Faster'' is a modern ballet that plays out like an MGM musical with a Hitchcockian soundtrack.
Movement is an ideal way to illustrate the development of these characters, whose moments of introspection are most effectively conveyed.
The classic musical returns in a new production by Free-Rain that seeks to emphasise the emotions of the story based on Victor Hugo's novel.
After the success of Tim Minchin's hit musicals Matilda and Groundhog Day, another Australian is heading to Broadway.
Much of the appeal of this new Australian musical about the women who work in a department store lies in the exploration of the social history of the times.
Austrian-born Ernst Toch's 1927 opera, in the hands of Victorian Opera, updates Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale to the digital age.
Melbourne Opera delivers a fine production of HMS Pinafore but it's almost too energetic for its own good.
As Opera Australia bumps in its spectacular restaging of Carmen outdoors on Sydney Harbour, we look at the feistiest women in the repertoire.
An ambitious show with plenty of interesting material never quite gets to the point of very funny.
The veteran comic has adopted a more holistic approach to life, and the pace of his stand-up has slowed too.
The notoriously belligerent comedian risked ruining his own show when he let fly at a patron.
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