Reviews

Noosa Alive!, or as it used to known, Noosa Long Weekend, is the Sunshine Coast’s celebration of Arts and Culture and has been a highlight of the area for a phenomenal 17 years. It’s usually jam-packed with events and artists including premieres, and this year is no exception. In between the contemporary a-capella group The Idea of North, and Blake Bowden’s Lorenz Hart tribute Straight From the Hart, there was Jordan Harrison’s (Orange is the New Black) little gem of a play Marjorie Prime.

What can fizzle on Broadway can sizzle on other stages. Cry-Baby only lasted 68 performances when it premiered in New York in 2008. At the Hayes Theatre - with its intimate staging - the musical is a delicious treat.

In an echo of Grease, Cry-Baby is set in the early golden era of the 1950’s – where the Cold War is at its most terrifying and bad boys wore leather jackets.  It’s about teenagers from two different tribes who fall in love in the flavour of Romeo and Juliet.

Harbour Theatre and Studio2Stage present the 2012 revival version of Godspell with enthusiasm and a sense of fun. Godspell, based on the Gospel of St Matthew is often remembered for its “hippie” vibe and seen as very much a product of the 1970s. This version is made for the millennial with contemporary references and a clean, present day vibe. 

There seems initially little honey to taste in the slum lives of this young mother and her teenage daughter in 1950’s working class England.  Shelagh Delaney wrote the hit play (and later film) when she was just 19.

Yet the honey is in the women’s underlying exuberance, the humour in their flawed males and a 50’s soundtrack which blows away cobwebs.