Reviews

Jude Perl’s Greatest Hits: So Fresh Spring 2020

Written & Performed by Jude Perl. Digital Fringe. Melbourne Fringe Festival 26, 27 & 28 November, 2020

Jude Perl has four Green Room Awards and a Best Cabaret Melbourne Fringe 2018 Award.  Her songs are witty, intricate, clever, ironic, rather self-mocking and musically sophisticated (could that be a problem?) and she writes and sings them all herself.  So, with this show, we might wonder why isn’t she a star?  Why aren’t her ‘greatest hits’, actual hits?  These are questions she asks too – and answers - in her very first song in this show, a song that also asks, ‘why can’t people respect me?’ 

Welcome to Bunt

Melbourne Digital Fringe Festival. Nov 24 – 29, 2020

Welcome to Bunt is the new show devised by two versatile creative performers, Sophie Joske and Elly Squire, for the Melbourne Digital Fringe Festival during COVID. This is an innovative, vaudevillian-inspired, low budget show that reflects on the broader consequences of lockdown and isolation, while addressing the urgent need to get out of one’s cave and see the real world again.

Away

Play by Michael Gow. Griffith University Third-Year Acting Students. Director: Timothy Hall. Burke Street Studio Theatre, Woolloongabba, Qld. 24-28 Nov 2020

Michael Gow’s classic Australian play has been given a light and airy production by Timothy Hall with the third year graduating drama students from Griffith University.

Gow’s play, set in 1967, about three families from different socio-economic backgrounds who converge on the Gold Coast for their annual summer holidays, has been revived constantly and studied by at least two generations of school children since its premiere in 1986.

Muse 90401

By Fadik Sevin Atasoy. Directed by Erdal Besikcioglu. Melbourne Fringe Festival, 12 -29 November 2020.

Fadik Sevin Atasoy performs this one-woman show where she interrogates the treatment of some important artistic muses. This show is beautifully crafted and opens with a pianist sitting at a grand piano who provides a delightful and evocative musical accompaniment. When Atasoy enters she mostly works in a spotlight and employs singing, dancing and stylised movement to question the treatment of the women who have inspired some of the most notable literary figures in history.

Ladies Write Letters of Lemony Love

Written & Directed by Maeve Hook. Digital Fringe. Melbourne Fringe Festival. 24 & 25, 28 & 29 November 2020

Do not be misled by the rather twee title.  In 1901 and into 1902, two intelligent, articulate young women, Isobel (Meg Hickey) and Henrietta (Maeve Hook) write to each other.  They’re friends in the remote rural town of Toobloodyfaraway in the wheat belt of south-west Victoria.  At first, their letters are brief and bright girlish notes.  But then they are separated when Henrietta moves to Melbourne. 

Music of the Night

Director: Madeleine Johns. Redcliffe Musical Theatre. November 13 – 19, 2021.

This production was really a celebration of the ten year life of this company and a great exhibition for the audience to remember past shows. Obviously many people have followed the RMT productions over the years as the large audience in attendance felt fully involved. I was amazed at how many musical based shows they have done over the ten years – thirty main house shows and twenty two by the junior theatre.  They have been busy.

The Third Culture Kid

By MC Emkew. Melbourne Fringe Festival. 24 to 28 November 2020

In The Third Culture Kid, Mashood Qureshi, also known as MC Emkew, tells the story of his life so far through spoken word and original rap songs. This coming-of-age story has universal themes, with deeply personal insights into the challenges Emkew faced because he was a Pakistani Muslim migrant kid growing up in Australia.

Much Ado About Nothing

By William Shakespeare. Shakesbeer. Kadidjiny Park Hall, Melville, WA. November 21-22, 2020

Shakesbeer, a company that focuses on bringing the spirit of original Shakespeare productions to modern audiences, presented Much Ado About Nothing for a short season in a cabaret setting. The vibrant, pacy and fun production was a joy to watch.

Full Circle

By Janet Shaw. Directed by Barry Lefort. Stirling Theatre, Morris Place, Innaloo, WA. Nov 20 - Dec 5, 2020

Full Circle is an interesting little comedy with a spring in its step. Nicely directed and well performed, it is set as Nicola’s wedding day approaches - and a multitude of skeletons come crashing out the closet.

Young Cezanne – A Lived Perspective

Written and directed by Leslie Gurusinghe. Melbourne Fringe Festival, 12 - 29 November 2020.

This play examines the life and relationship of the artists Paul Cezanne (Leslie Gurusinghe) and Marie Fiquet (Dominik Shields). The play is intriguingly set in both 1856 and 2020. The oscillation between the two time periods is well handled as the costumes and set clearly evoke the historical period but could also just as easily be a contemporary scene. The striking similarity between the time frames is continually reiterated throughout the text and is an important basis of the narrative.

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