Arts
Blaze of colour
In Opera Australia’s Carmen, director George Bell draws out and magnifies the contrasts and tensions of the story marvellously and bends them to their limits with dazzling and dramatic effect.
My Fair Lady musical comes to Melb
MELBOURNE’S love affair with My Fair Lady is about to be reignited with a glorious new production directed by Dame Julie Andrews.
Big queues for city’s latest blockbuster
PEOPLE have queued three-deep in the CBD for Melbourne’s latest blockbuster. And this time it isn’t for pizza or an AFL match of the round at the ‘G.
Keeping up with both Joneses
THE characters and experiences are simultaneously achingly familiar and strangely alien in Will Eno’s eccentric play, The Realistic Joneses.
Cool change for a hot shot
DAVID Campbell sure knows how to shoot the breeze like Bobby Darin, and will play the hip 60s entertainer when a new Australian musical smash hit comes to Melbourne.
Hundreds rush to NGV to see van Gogh genius
HOW amazed he would be. In life, Vincent van Gogh was shunned and called a madman. But today, the tormented Dutch artist was the hero of the hour.
Split decision
In Three Little Words Tess and Curtis blithely announce to their closest friends, long-term couple Annie and Bonnie, that they are splitting after 20 years of wedded bliss.
Notoriously brutal leader fits today’s world
In Peter Evans’ production of Richard 3, the diminutive but volatile Kate Mulvany successfully crosses gender to play the notoriously brutal but physically disabled Richard 3.
Jailhouse opera
It’s opera with a difference when Emotionworks Cut Opera adds genre-crossing music to Puccini’s Tosca and performs the modern take in Coburg’s historic Pentridge.
Van Gogh comes to Melbourne
VAN Gogh painted one of his most famous works under supervision while hospitalised at Saint-Remy asylum in Provence. See it at the NGV’s latest Winter Masterpieces exhibition.
Electrifying Aladdin lights Melbourne stage
WITH its blazing jewel colours and the electrifying energy of Michael James Scott as the audacious Genie, this luscious production of Aladdin ignites the stage.
Aladdin grants Disney fans’ wishes
THE bright glow of Aladdin’s lamp will be shining for many months to come after it opens in Melbourne this week.
Wil takes Doggies love to next level
HE used to live with cats and barrack for the Doggies. But comic Wil Anderson’s household is now “equal opportunity” and “on brand” after adding two furry members to the family.
Perfect rabbit in the headlights
Each month over the next year a different actor will perform a “cold read” of a one hour-long script that becomes a solo performance. An actor’s nightmare, or an exhilarating, theatrical experience?
Comedy Festival 2017: Hannah Gadsby, Nanette
IT’S last laughs for this much-admired comedian, whose farewell stand-up show delivers heartfelt gags and bittersweet goodbyes. PLUS LATEST REVIEWS.
Broadway home away from home
From small fry to a Big Apple hit, Rodney Rigby is doing Australia proud, writes Wendy Tuohy.
Comedy Festival 2017: Red Stitch Theatre’s Rules for Living
IN THE chaotic comedy-drama Rules for Living, UK playwright Sam Holcroft attempts to expose the behavioural ‘rules for living’ that govern our human relationships and she capitalises on the intense emotions that can emerge during a family Christmas.
A divisive dance
Anti-Gravity is a rigorously developed, immersive experience but those looking for the physicality of contemporary dance may miss the immediacy and kinetic excitement of more sustained choreography.
Olympics inspired dance en pointe
Faster is a triple bill of varying works that showcase the Australian Ballet en masse, allowing lesser seen dancers to strut their stuff and principals to duet with different partners than usual.
All on board the good ship
MELBOURNE Opera have the heavily dramatic works of Wagner’s Lohengrin and Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux to come but a completely satisfying belly-laugh start to their season docked into the Athenaeum Theatre this week in the form of HMS Pinafore.
David O’Doherty’s silly, silly show
IRISH comedian David O’Doherty pines for the good ol’ days of nine months ago when everyone was angry about Pokemon Go, discovers Mikey Cahill.
Opera hits Arabesque note
Praise to Lyric Opera of Melbourne for giving The Japanese Princess a delightful and meaningful outing for its Australian premiere.
Mesmerising musical a tale for all ages
OTTORINO Respighi himself would be mesmerised by how magically glowing his musical fable, The Sleeping Beauty, lives in Victorian Opera’s latest production.
Gotta have Faith
MEMORY may be unreliable, but the troubled characters in Irish playwright Brian Friel’s challenging and moving play Faith Healer, reframe their memories of a shared past to suit their own needs, writes reviewer Kate Herbert.
Hot stuff
The Full Monty is back but, this time, it’s not the 1997 UK film set in the economically depressed city of Sheffield in the North of England, but the American musical adaptation that transports the six, unemployed steelworkers to Buffalo, New York.
Tim Finn brings Aussie tale to life
Ladies in Black charms the audience with its simple, engaging stories of the saleswomen who work in F.G. Goodes — a store that resembles Myer and Georges — in 1959, just before the conservative ’50s become the unconventional ’60s
Rugging up for summer
For its free entry summer blockbuster this year, the National Gallery of Victoria will roll out the red carpet to 60 contemporary artists from more than 30 countries.
A love triangle doomed
With its story residing in a grim melting pot of infanticide, revenge and mystery on a background of civil war, in CityOpera’s Il trovatore a love triangle is blown apart in a tragic finale few might see coming.
What goes wrong, goes so right
In this raucously slapstick UK comedy The Play That Goes Wrong, anything that can go wrong does go wrong (Murphy’s Law), including a collapsing set, missed cues, forgotten lines, missing props and truly awful, hammy acting.
