Reviews

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat has made a welcome return to the Players Theatre at Ballina with all the colour befitting this popular show.

In the capable hands of the multi-talented Paul and Sue Belsham and Jamie Sheehan, Ballina’s revival of this piece is proving to be another great production for the home of “Regional Theatre at its best”.

The Great American Songbook has never been safer than in the hands of entertainer Michael Feinstein. Affectionately called the ambassador of this genre, he has made it his life’s work to share globally these unique decades in musical composition and performance.

Showcasing composers and lyricists such as George and Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Sammy Cahn and Bart Howard, Feinstein exudes love and respect for his contemporaries and one-time friends.

Absorbed in Adelaide Repertory Theatre’s current production of Sam Bobrick’s The Psychic I found myself back in my teens and remembering how much I had loved the wonderful and very funny characters in the Damon Runyon fictional stories that my father introduced to me. Full of detailed imagery about the hustlers and gangsters of the big cities of prohibition-era America, the characters were larger-than-life, with their distinctive vernacular style being a signature part of the writing.

A century after its origin as a John Buchan novel and eight decades after Hitchcock’s adapation to film, The 39 Steps has, with Patrick Barlow’s stage adaptation, metamophosed from a tense thriller into a period comedy adventure of timeless appeal.