I like the idea of university theatre groups putting on two short plays instead of a single big one. I like the freedom it affords theatre-makers to experiment and the lowered pressure on the audience. If the first show is bad, it’ll be done soon anyway. And if it’s great, you savour every moment. Four Letter Word Theatre has been deploying the double-bill tactic for … Continue reading (un)Australian: The legacy of a cultural crisis
Bitch on Heat is artist Leah Shelton’s most recent project, a highly physicalised display of performance art staged in the intimate venue of Theatre Works. Designed to both demonstrate and rival the patriarchy and its relentless oppression of women, Shelton takes on one of the biggest issues we currently face. Directed by Ursula Martinez, this show explores the timelessness of sexism, and how it has … Continue reading Bitch on Heat: A Modern Day Pandora’s Box
Up-and-coming Melbourne-based company Lightning Jar Theatre made a sound decision when it chose Mr Burns: A post-electric play as its latest production – one that paid off in a sold-out first season. Now it’s back, by popular demand, for a short re-run at fortyfive downstairs. Don’t be fooled by the primitive illumination: this is electrifying theatre. Critically acclaimed as one of the 25 best American … Continue reading Mr Burns: A Post Electric Play
James Macaronas, well known amongst the University of Melbourne community for his highly genred sci fi works, presents his first one-man show at the iconic Butterfly Club. Kirk Dangerous Kills the Prime Minister is a political show, entrenched in the realm of science fiction and caricature. The narrative follows the elusive Kirk Dangerous on a mission of assassination. Directed by Ellie Woods, the performance sits … Continue reading Kirk Dangerous Kills the Prime Minister: A Museum of the Damned
The University of Melbourne Music Theatre Association’s (UMMTA) uncanny professionalism strikes once more in Parade as they deliver a double punch of authentic, gut-wrenching history neatly nestled amongst the razzmatazz fair audiences have come to expect of musical theatre. Parade sets the true story of Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-raised Jew living in Georgia, against a cacophony of sound (otherwise known as Jason Robert Brown’s ingenious … Continue reading Parade: UMMTA Leads the March
Slaughterhouse Five, the much acclaimed science fiction anti-war novel, has undergone a number of adaptations and reincarnations over the many years since its original publication in 1969. Multiple plays, an opera, a radio drama and a film have all come about since Kurt Vonnegut’s controversial book featuring a time traveling soldier hit shelves. The text is still much discussed amongst schools in America, and has … Continue reading Slaughterhouse Five: A Crusade of Children and an Adult
In the dilapidated, art-deco ‘Missing Persons’ room of the Nicholas Building off Swanston Street, I sit amongst a full house of audience members awaiting the ‘Juicy’ duo comprising of JG and Lucy. The audience is clearly made up of friends and family of the cast, and their support proves immediate as the show begins. Despite the slightly uncomfortable wooden bench seating and cramped atmosphere, there … Continue reading Juicy: Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Play Right?
Ah how I love the non tiered, close together seating and subterranean temperatures of Max Watt’s. This is where Phil Jupitus is performing one of only three gigs at the 2019 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Hailing from the UK, Jupitus is more typically seen on British panel shows than touring live stand up. Tonight he has attracted a crowd from the generations of my parents, … Continue reading Phil Jupitus: Far from home
For the 2019 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, MUDCRABS (the Melbourne University Comedy Revue Board) have produced one of their most entertaining shows yet. Kit Goodman! A Good Man, written and directed by Emily White and playing at the University’s Guild Theatre, is a fast-paced, funny and smart take on the traditionally male-dominated detective genre, complete with sex, violence, drag, and PTV. In the show Tombi Lloyd … Continue reading Kit Goodman! A Good Man: A good man is hard to find
Going to Rhys Nicholson has become somewhat of a tradition for my Mum and I. As we peruse the thick catalogue of shows for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival each year, he is one of the few acts that has remained on our list. That is, until this year when Mum decided she didn’t want to make the pilgrimage out to the city to see … Continue reading Rhys Nicholson: Nice jokes, Nice delivery, Nice content
The Dialog 