Reviews

Beenleigh Theatre Group’s 17 Again: The Musical, playing at Crete St Theatre this February, is a bright, high-energy adaptation. Directed by Lachlan Dodd, this pop-rock musical leans hard into nostalgia, big emotions, and high-energy ensemble work, telling a familiar but crowd-pleasing story about regret, second chances, and figuring out what really matters once the shine has worn off. The production embraces the story’s fun, magical realism and big-hearted comedy, delivering a show that feels both familiar yet refreshing.  

Hyper-glam, big hair blonde drag artist Jens Rada hails from Denmark via South Africa and WAAPA Music Theatre.  The show, Skank Sinatra has already garnered awards at Adelaide Cabaret Festival, Adelaide Fringe, and Melbourne Fringe.  It’s not hard to see why. 

Danish Sheikh loves not just the law, but also words. He believes in the power of both and in this play he uses cleverly crafted, poetic, and sometimes startling words to contemplate and question the law and his relationship with it. In this solo performance he self-deprecatingly uses a combination of lecture, performance and multimedia presentation to delve into his history with the law and how words can privilege or disappear experiences.

Part stand-up, part cabaret, Jack Francis West begins his show about his mother’s death – and his own continuing reaction to it – in flippant, facetious mode.  He describes what he’s about to tell us as the eulogy he delivered at the time.  ‘Here we go,’ we think: ‘It’s black comedy about death.’  If we’re unprepared or uninformed, we may even think the story we’re about to hear - and laugh at - is fiction.