Reviews

Brandon Thomas’ 1892 farce Charley’s Aunt has been performed countless times and is still charming and delightful. It makes for a fun night at the theatre and is one of the best shows I have seen by Tea Tree Players.

Barry Hill, the director, has assembled an excellent cast, tutored well in physical farce and sharp line delivery. The pace of this show is perfect and the laughter throughout from the audience demonstrated its timeless appeal.

Christopher Boone is fifteen years old, likes maths, outer space, looking after Toby, his rat, and he sees everything. In the multi-award-winning adaptation of Mark Haddon’s famous novel, Simon Stephens places an autistic boy in the midst of what he sees only as a murder mystery, but quickly reveals that despite knowing every colour of the cars he passed on his way to school, he is unaware of the neighbourhood secrets and the human capacity to lie and deceive.

FiFi Productions present another home-grown World Premiere, with a bitter-sweet historical setting and distinctive local flavour. Set on Platform 3 at Perth Train Station, Time After Time follows a succession of couples who meet on the platform, against the background of two world wars, then the war in Vietnam, leading up to a meeting in the present day.

Mel and Sam’s stock in trade is satire - a kind of cheeky, cheerful frontal assault mockery of institutions, the phoney and the fashionable, sacred cows, and the just plain ridiculous.  Mostly that’s via their songs – sometimes riffing off songs we all know, or more often their own fast-moving patter songs with lots of puns, internal rhymes, and shock (‘Did they just say that??’) lyrics.