Reviews

flowerchildren

By Peter Fitzpatrick. Magnormos (Vic). Comedy Theatre, Melbourne. Director/Musical Arranger: Aaron Joyner. Producer: Margaret Fisk. Music Director Sophie Thomas. Set/Costume Design: Christina Logan-Bell. 23rd May – 16th June, 2013.

flowerchildren is a triumph with glorious singing, wonderful writing, and eye-catching visuals. Peter Fitzpatrick’s musical about 1960’s musical sensation The Mamas and The Papas, is an original delight.

flowerchildren’s narrative follows the success and self-destruction of The Mamas and The Papas between 1965–68 when they released five albums and had eleven Top 40 hit singles including California Dreamin’, Monday Monday, and Go Where You Wanna Go.

One Man, Two Guvnors

By Richard Bean, from Goldoni’s Servant of Two Masters. Director Nicholas Hynter. The National Theatre of Great Britain. Playbox Theatre, Arts Centre Melbourne. May 17 – June 22, 2013.

Take a classic Comedia dell’Arte play, transport it to Brighton in 1963 – the time when the infamous Kray Twins were at their peak, throw in every piece of Music Hall/vaudeville shtick and every gag from the golden years of revue and variety, add a skiffle band and shake vigorously and you have what is billed as “The Funniest Show in the World?” Is it? Well, yes, if the opening night audience was anything to go by. There’s not one original line or piece of business in the show, but that just adds to the homage of the bye-gone variety days.

The Woman In Black

By Stephen Malatratt. Directed by Justin Stephens. The Basin Theatre (Vic). May 17th – June 8th, 2013

It takes a fine Director and some excellent actors to make a community theatre production of this somewhat dated classic ghost story work in theatrical terms. Fortunately The Basin Theatre Group has both in this terrific show. Put simply, solicitor Kipps wants to perform for his friends and family his story of an encounter with a ghost, the terrifying spectre of the title. He hires an actor to help him and that actor becomes him, while Kipps himself plays all the other roles in the story, apart from the ghost herself.

 

True Love Travels on a Gravel Road

By Jane Miller. Director: Beng Oh. Fortyfivedownstairs (Vic) 16 May to 2 June, 2013.

True Love Travels on a Gravel Road is a beautifully written play that cares deeply about the lives of each of its six characters as they stumble towards happiness. Written by Jane Miller, and clearly benefitting from careful script development (aided by an R E Ross Trust playwrights’ award in 2011), it impresses because its characters and their situations are so believable.

Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds

Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds – Alive on Stage - the New Generation! Participating cinemas across Australia from 24 May

First up, some disclosures: I am a lifelong science fiction fan. HG Wells' War of the Worlds is in my top five sci-fi novels, read so many times that I can watch this show and say, aha, now we're starting chapter 12. And the original double LP of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds was a cherished and much-played part of my teenage record collection.

Urinetown

By Mark Hollman and Greg Kotis. The Regals Musical Society (NSW). Bexley RSL Club. May 17 – 25, 2013.

George S. Kaufman is famously quoted as saying "Satire is what closes on Saturday night," after Strike Up the Band, his satirical 1927 collaboration with the Gershwins flopped out of town.

Well things have certainly changed since that gloomy one-liner.

A Storm in a D Cup

Written and Performed by Amelia Ryan. Director Ben Pfeiffer. Musical Director Cameron Thomas. The Butterfly Club (Vic) – May 22 – 26 & Kew Court House – June 29 & 30, 2013.

Amelia Ryan is all ringlets and sparkle as she presents her one-woman show.

Ryan, a 2012 Australian Cabaret Showcase Prize Winner, is a generous performer who invests great energy and passion into this performance. The show begins with the childhood discovery that her father is gay, and his relationship with a transgender step-mother, before we are led through a litany of personal mishaps, parking fines, driving debacles, pole dancing injuries, romantic exploits and physical ailments.

Pack of Lies

By Hugh Whitemore. Centenary Theatre Group (Qld). 4 – 25 May, 2013

The strengths of this Cold War spy docudrama are splendidly conceived dialogue played expertly by a shrewdly chosen cast. It was slick, entertaining and engaging. Congratulations, director, Dale Murison.

It is based on reality. In the paranoia period, 1961,when both Britain and the USA were obsessed with Russian spies, an American couple (masquerading as Canadians) in suburban London were suspected by MI5 of spying. Names of all characters in the play have been changed.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream The Rock Musical

By George Griggs. Normanhurst Uniting Church (NSW). May 10 – 25, 2013.

Premiere – be it World, Amateur or state - is an exciting prospect for any community theatre company.

On the same night, and at the opposite end of the spectrum to CLOC’s big budget World Amateur Premiere of tried-and-tested mega hit The Phantom of the Opera, NUCMS in the northern Sydney suburb of Normanhurst bravely staged a far more obscure offering, the Australian Premiere of a rock musical version of Shakespeare’s best-loved comedy, which has only played fairly limited American regional dates.

Next To Normal

By Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt. Newcastle Theatre Company. NTC Theatre, Lambton, NSW. Director: Carl Young. Musical Director: David Fitzgerald. May 15 – 25, 2013.

Sydney's loss was NTC's gain when the professional NSW premiere of this Tony and Pulitzer prize winning rock musical folded prior it's proposed opening in September 2012. Given its critical reception and comparisons to Rent this reviewer was especially keen to see if it lived up to the hype.

Popularly referred to as 'The Crazy Lady Musical', Next to Normal is the exploration of a woman's decline into bipolar disorder as a result of unbearable grief – and the impact her illness has on her family.