Reviews

Australia’s Love Never Dies production is a disarmingly sumptuous feast for ears, eyes and soul, with ravishing music, breathtaking set design and costuming. The sequel to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera opened last night at Melbourne’s Regent Theatre to a rapturous reception.

So excellent is Robin Emmett’s design and artwork for 1812 Theatre’s production of Tom Dulak’s Breaking Legs, that you have trouble realising that you are not looking at the actual scene, a mafia connected Italian restaurant in the USA.

The audience are at the rear of the restaurant’s interior, looking toward the window, and out on the car park with several cars in view. Painted on the rear wall, the cars look most realistic. The interior side walls are views across the ocean, with a large painting of the statue of David on each side.

Marie Clark has reached for the stars in their latest production of Miss Saigon, and has pleasantly outdone themselves with this staging of a well-known musical.

Directed by Max Rayner, with choreography by Irena Setchell and musical direction by Ben Saunders, one would expect pretty high standards. On most fronts they don’t disappoint, however there were a few glaring issues which took the shine off of this potential gem.

True to the ability of Dr Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) to engage even beginning readers with his simply expressed and rhymed stories, and entrance them with his drawings, Seussical The Musical is a charm musical, simple and appealing in its storytelling, wit and evocation of those characters.