Reviews

In Small Doses

Adelaide Fringe – The roundabout at Fool’s Paradise. Presented by Maroussia Vladi. 16 February – 3 March 2024

A mother visits her daughter to help her recover from an injury – but her large suitcase and an admission that she’s left her interstate partner suggests it’s for longer than a weekend.

Tomatoes Tried To Kill Me But Banjos Saved My Life

Adelaide Fringe – The Garage International @ Scots. Presented by Quivering Dendrites. 16 February – 3 March 2024

Keith Alessi walks onto the stage with his instrument and quips all the old jokes about banjo players, to get them out of the way. He darkens only to mention the movie with the men in the canoe, then delivers such positivity about how his life turned to bring him to where he is today.

The Whisper

By Brodie Murray. Fortyfivedownstairs, Flinders Lane. 15 – 25 February 2024

An indigenous family, Nan (Melodie Reynolds-Diarra), elder grandson Jack (Balla Neba) and younger grandson Riley (the playwright Brodie Murray) travel mostly by night, evading the police and making their way south, fleeing South Australia and heading for the (relative) safety of Swan Hill in Victoria.  It’s around 1946-47 and the police are not just taking children away, they’re bullying, harassing and arresting Aboriginal people. 

Sex, Love and Youth – a Shakespearean Soiree

Adelaide Fringe – The Ballroom at Ayers House (also at Diverse-City, West Village). Presented by Jonathan J Mill. 16-20 February 2024

A small band of travelling players pick and choose from Shakespeare’s words, opting for fun over tragedy. Two women and three men take on all roles as they navigate a good portion of Romeo & Juliet and two of Shakespeare’s comedies to hammer home the expression of love through poetry, comedy, and sex.

Matador / intimo

Adelaide Fringe Festival 2024. Gluttony and Bass Fam Creative. The Octagon at Gluttony, Rymill Park, Adelaide. Feb 16 to March 17, 2024

Matador / intimo is burlesque with balls, or should I say bulls!

After a somewhat tardy start we are immediately immersed in a world drenched with blood-red light and couples lurking ominously in the shadows.

The show itself is a melange of burlesque, aerial work, flamenco, point work, cross gender, and salsa, all wrapped in costumes that would fit equally in the bull ring or a BDSM dungeon.

RIVER

Perth Festival. Performed by the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Perth Concert Hall. 16 February 2024

Music evokes powerful images and emotions in our imagination, so when film-maker, Jennifer Peedom and musical director/composer Richard Tognetti collaborate on creative decisions, expect to be emotionally moved.

RIVER is a documentary featuring much more than just aerial shots of flowing water.

It explores the very essence of how rivers are formed and how humans gather what they need but frequently interfere, leaving waste when they try to tame and shape the flow.

England & Son

Adelaide Fringe – The Studio, Holden Street Theatres. Presented by Holden Street Theatres’ Edinburgh Fringe Award ’23 in association with HOME Manchester and Tin Cat Entertainment. 16 February to 17 March 2024

An eight-year-old boy loves working with his dad, taking down old buildings – that’s the gentle trundling start of this turbulent story of one man’s life, and the people and politics that shaped him.

Hamlet in 15 Minutes

Adelaide Fringe – The Barbara Hardy Garden. Presented by Holden Street Theatres.16 February to 17 March 2024

I’m not usually a fan of rushing Shakespeare, even for comedy – not because the text is deserving of reverence and contemplation (though it is), but because there’s so much packed into the language. Of course, careful editing is often helpful for 21st century audiences, but slashing a three hour play to fifteen minutes must be missing something, surely?

Duchess of Malfi

By John Webster. Presented by Arrant Knaves Theatre Company. Adapted and directed by Tom Bradley. Meat Market, 3 Blackwood St, North Melbourne. 15-24 February 2024

Webster’s Jacobean drama is typically inspired by a true story and is a very complex and grim play. The tale of the murder of the Duchess and her family after her secret marriage to a courtier, to protect title and property, reveals high levels of religious and political corruption and misdeeds. The characters are very multifaceted, and the story is quite convoluted making the text very challenging to stage.

Bernadette Robinson – Divas

Director Simon Phillips. Riverside Theatre Parramatta. 15-17 Feb, 2024

Only a performer as skilled and versatile as Bernadette Robinson could possibly hope to inhabit the diverse lives of ten of the most famous musical divas of our time. From Maria Callas to Amy Winehouse; Judy Garland to Miley Cyrus; Dame Shirley Bassey to Amy Winehouse; along with Piaf, Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton and Karen Carpenter, Robinson takes her enthralled audience seamlessly from opera to pop, contemporary pop star to war time chanteuse.

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